How To Develop Your Listening Skills

Is ear training something you have ever considered?

How do you listen to music?

Can you identify what’s actually taking place in the song or track you’re listening to?

Can you identify the musical content of what you’re listening to?

The Listening Skills and ear training course is devised to enable learners to develop their listening skills, with a focus on the sonic and musical components within music productions. Learners will explore the potential of hearing by learning to listen actively instead of passively.

Active listening allows the listener to explore and recognise the different parts in a composition and how they have been put together, the choice of instruments and the production techniques used.

Using his own composition “Summers Draw”, X=X guides listeners through the musical structure; genre style influences in the instrumentation used and how each instrument is played; an overview of the musical relationships between each instrument’s choice of notes and chords; and the aesthetic choices made in the construction of the composition.

Lesson 1 introduces the music to the listener and asks the listener to decipher key elements within the composition. Each following lesson expands on these key elements.

Lesson 2 identifies and considers the choices of instruments used in the production; the arrangement and structure of the music with reference to basic music theory such as Key and chord choices.

Lesson 3 focuses on how the instruments are played and the tones and textures created by each. Consideration is also given to the rhythmic structure of the music and how rhythm can emphasise musical passages.

Lessons 4 and 5 focus on the influence of genre in the playing styles and techniques used and the tones, textures and timbres created. Each instrument and the musical passages played are broken down into sections providing reference to the origins of the musical influence on those parts such as key musicians of particular styles and performance techniques.

Lessons 6, 7 and 8 consider the production techniques and effects used and how the music influences and informs the production.

The final lesson of this ear training course concludes with identifying issues within the performance and production and the aesthetic choices made.

X=X has also provided the track featured in course so that you can truly get the full experience.

If you would like to watch more FREE music production, music business, theory and wellbeing videos then head over to the Education & Bass Youtube channel.