I had a first lesson with a bass guitar student. Young adult, self taught, and this was their first proper bass lesson. I usually do a casual assessment of skills. We started with left and right hand warm ups, some rhythmic playing, and then we got to ear training.
Well! It was a skype call and this person was able to replicate anything I played back to them on the first (sometimes second) try - both melodic lines and even some two-note chords. I even threw in some pitfalls and they were able to navigate around them. Afterwards they emphatically said "SEE? I told you I learned all this stuff by ear!"
Here's the catch: being self taught and skeptical of academic music in general, how can I properly challenge this person's ear? My background is theory heavy and I want to, think I should, and think I can eventually work some theory in... but for now I really want to find some upper aural skills limits here and start to work on those.
But how?
I can see two sets of responses here here, which I'd like to to pre-empt if I can.
- "Even though theory helps, you can do tons of ear training without it. Here are some ideas" - this is what I'm after
- "Theory is an important underpinning and having theoretical knowledge is crucial to training your ear. Find ways to work it in." - I also want to do this once we've established a baseline
TL;DR: Mind blown by student's aural skills prowess, they are apprehensive of theory. how to proceed?
Thank you!
Submitted May 26, 2022 at 11:13AM by markroberthenderson https://www.reddit.com/r/Learnmusic/comments/uy8k2a/ear_training_that_starts_out_light_on_theory/?utm_source=ifttt