Recommended Items That Can Be Useful For Guitar Ear Training
Topic: “Ear Training"
Ear training can be very useful when you want to play songs by artists that don’t have tablature available, or when you don’t want to spend money on scores.
What Is 'Ear Training’?
Ear training is the process of recreating a song without using written music such as sheet music or tablature, relying solely on your ears.
Ear training is a skill that requires a lot of practice and cannot be mastered overnight. By gradually training your ears, you can develop the ability to play songs by ear.
While ear training is not a skill that can be learned overnight, there are items that can be helpful for ear training, which I would like to introduce.
Monitor Headphones
When doing ear training, it is recommended to use headphones instead of speakers. Especially when using the built-in speakers of a PC, the bass frequencies are often cut off, making it difficult to hear the bass parts. (Note: earbuds are not recommended due to potential strain on the ears.)
That’s where monitor headphones come in handy.
Monitor headphones are high-quality headphones mainly used in music production and studio recording. Unlike regular headphones, they are designed to have minimal frequency response, sound pressure level, and distortion.
AKG K240STUDIO
The headphones I am currently using are also widely used in recording studios overseas. They fit comfortably and are reasonably priced, so I highly recommend them.
Software For Ear Training
Ear training software can also be helpful for transcription.
Ear training software is a type of software that can analyze audio sources and display notes or chords, change the tempo of a song, and enable loop playback, among other features.
Transcribe！
One ear training software that I highly recommend is 'Transcribe!'
Loop playback, speed control, and other useful features for ear training are included in Transcribe!. Changing the playback speed is especially convenient, with minimal degradation in sound quality. Check out the sample on the official website.
Transcribe! Giant Steps Samples
Transcribe! offers a 30-day free trial period, so you can download and try it out. If you decide to purchase, it is available for download for $39 per license.
Finally
That concludes the introduction of recommended items that can help with guitar ear training. It may be difficult and frustrating at first, but the feeling of accomplishment when you can play a song by ear is priceless. Give it a try!
