Absolute musical ear refers to what abilities? General and special abilities

Many people try to join the musical art, if not on a professional level, then at least on an amateur level. However, this can not be done without musical abilities and hearing. Absolute musical ear refers to one of several types of musical abilities and causes a lot of controversy about the nature of its formation. Is it possible to develop it? Let's try to figure it out.

General and special abilities

Common abilities, without which it is impossible even to start playing music - is a musical memory and a healthy psychomotor. By musical memory is meant several types of memory that allow one to remember and reproduce musical works in one form or another - by ear or visually memorizing the arrangement of notes on the keyboard, visually "photographing" the music score, etc.

The core of musicality is also:

• A feeling that allows a person to distinguish between the emotional coloring of music and its harmony;
• Musical-auditory notions about the height of sounds, the nature of their reproduction, the order of motion (this includes the ability to reproduce heard by ear);
• Perception of rhythm and the ability to work in a given rhythmic pattern.

Special abilities include those that are necessary for a specific performing activity (for example, a violinist is presented with a number of requirements that differ from the requirements for a vocalist or pianist), as well as the abilities necessary to carry out composer activity.

General and special abilities are not limited to the above components, besides, the boundaries between the two groups are not completely clear.

Types of musical ear

Musical-auditory representations in another way are called a musical ear. There are several of its varieties:

1. External (perception of music in real time) and internal (the ability to reproduce music in the imagination).
2. Absolute (the ability to accurately recognize and reproduce individual sounds and melodies) and relative (the ability to build a melody or scale, based on the ties of harmony and harmony).
3. Harmonic (the perception of polyphonic chords and parts) and melodic (the perception of monophonic melodies).

What is the absolute musical ear

In turn, the absolute musical ear is divided into 2 categories: passive and active. Passive is when a person can exactly name the height of a reproduced sound, recognize a chord taken or even name the notes that make up the melody. A well-developed active absolute ear allows a person to accurately reproduce a given melody, scale or chord.

Absolute musical ear refers, in theory, to general musical abilities, because musical-auditory representations are in this category. However, researchers conduct heated discussions about this classification.

Firstly, it would be wrong to refer the absolute hearing to general abilities, because for any kind of musical activity the relative hearing is more important - the ability to build relative frets connections (this is precisely what musicianship means). Absolute hearing is a unique phenomenon. However, its presence does not speak of a person's ability to understand music, but rather indicates a good auditory memory that accurately records musical information. Therefore, some researchers argue that the absolute musical ear refers to special abilities. Again, until now it has not been established whether it is innate ability or acquired.

How to perform a test for musical ear

The test for the presence of a musical ear is passed by pupils before enrolling in a music school, students before entering a music school, etc. For people who plan to practice music professionally, such tests are common. However, in order to turn music into your hobby, you also need to make sure you have the ability. How to check out the ear for music at home?

This does not require sophisticated methods - it is enough to perform several simple tasks with the help of a partner.

Task number 1

It is desirable that the person who passes the test should stand with his back to the instrument. The partner should take on the keyboard an arbitrary note. The subject is given a couple of seconds to remember her sound. Then the assistant must play the notes one after the other, and the subject must learn among them the note that he keeps in his memory. Repeat the test several times.

Task number 2

If the person who passes the test knows the name of the notes, then you can try the same technique: the partner takes an arbitrary note - the tester sounds its name.

Task number 3

Musical hearing implies a good perception of the rhythm. The assistant should pencil a hard rhythmic pattern on the hard surface, which will last 5-7 seconds. The subject must exactly repeat it.

Performing a thorough test for musical ear can not work out the first time - this is normal even for people who have a hearing. But if in repeated repetitions the number of correct answers is less than 20-30%, then, most likely, the musical ear is absent or very poorly developed.

How to develop an absolute musical ear

Since the absolute musical ear refers to the still poorly-studied sphere of human abilities, with a strong desire, one can still try to develop it: even if the test was passed unsatisfactorily, this is not a guarantee that the person does not have any makings at all. Performing systematic exercises on hearing development can finally clarify the situation: confirm or deny the result of the first listening.

Exercises for the development of absolute musical ear

When the development of musical ear is carried out, exercises should be chosen for the beginning of the most simple. When they are mastered, you can complicate tasks. You will need an assistant for the training.

Exercise # 1

The exercise as a whole repeats exercise number 1 from the test for musical ear. The only difference is that this time when the student is wrong, he needs to tell the right answer and let him remember the sound of the note again, as well as its name (if he has a musical notation). Pedagogical studies have shown that reporting the right answer improves the results of further exercises by 25-30%.

Exercise # 2

When the previous exercise is mastered, it is worth moving on to a more complex version - the musical dictation. For him it is necessary to take the simplest melody - from the textbook for the 1st grade of the music school.

For the first dictation, the team-mate should slowly, observing the size and all pauses, play only a few bars, and the subject - by ear, record the melody with notes. Over time, the length of the melody can be increased, trying to write more complex dictations. Checking and working on bugs is an obligatory part of this exercise.

Conclusion

The test for musical ear can say a lot about the abilities of a person, but not everything. Some subjects are too worried, and this prevents them from showing all their potential.

However, if you decided to develop a musical ear, you need to understand that the exercise should be, if not a daily exercise, then carried out at least 3-4 times a week. With non-systematic exercises, the result will be difficult to achieve, and in some cases it will have to wait years. The development of an absolute musical ear is not an easy task, it is necessary to equip oneself with patience.