Getting Started With Auralia Ear Training

Well, I have been playing with RisingSoftware's Auralia Ear Training Program for an hour or so now and I thought I'd publish my first impressions - a complete review will be published in the Ear Training section of Advanced Guitar Player so take these comments with a pinch of salt (I use the blog to work on ideas before I put them on the main site!)

I decided to begin the Level One Jazz Ear Training Course - for Intermediate Students with an interest in Improvisation - and see where things took me.

The first section of the Jazz Course was pretty straightforward - Recognising all of the Intervals in a Major Scale if I remember rightly. ie. Unison, Major Second, Major Third, Perfect Fourth, Perfect Fifth, Major Sixth, Major Seventh, Perfect Octave. No funny stuff here. The intervals were all ascending and you just have to click on the button to name them (or you can use a keyboard or guitar fretboard if you prefer to signal the notes). Very easy! Feeling pretty good about things.

Part Two. . . Scale Recognition is a completely different kettle of fish, though! The section opens with an explanation of every scale imaginable - major, natural, harmonic, melodic, blues scale, diminished and a very long list of etceteras. Each scale is notated and there's a play button so that you can list to how it sounds. To be pefectly honest, I rushed through this so the cropper I came when I got to the exercises was probably my own stupid fault.

So what happened? The program played a scale and I had to choose which one it was out of about 20 possibilities. No Way José! I wasn't primed so I found the task much too difficult.

However, this made exit the Jazz Course and start to mess around with the rest of the program . . . I went directly to the Scale Recognition  Exercise. This began by having to choose between two scales - Major and Natural (aeolian) Minor, I think - and gradually added different scales. In about 10 minutes I was choosing comfortably between Major, Natural, Harmonic and Melodic Minors. So with a bit of practice I'll be able to do the Jazz Course Exercise in a couple of days. Pretty nifty, methinks!