What ear training exercises can I use to be able to learn long and fast solos by ear?
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1There is no shortcut for this. You have to be able to hear and learn simple short lines and slowly build from there. Doing that will develop your ear’s “vocabulary” (for lack of a better word) and you will gradually start being able to recognize sequences of notes and notes that are played more rapidly.– John BelzaguyCommented Sep 24 at 20:29
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Get a video of the solo and play it at a much slower speed (25% and 50% speed are plausible on YouTube). That's the ear training exercise you need.– DekkadeciCommented Sep 25 at 6:04
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I recommend learning the names of as many 1-note to 5-note scales/jins within a reasonable relative pitch range as you can muster. I also recommend listening to ragas to acquaint yourself with intervals that might be uncommon. This has improved my skills in recognizing what the artist is playing. For really virtuostic solos I need to relisten many times or slow down though...– EmilCommented Sep 25 at 21:41
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2 Answers
Knowing scales and arpeggios - physically and by ear were the main salvations for me. For years, I fumbled about playing random notes when transcribing solos. When I realised that most solos are made up from notes in particular scales it cut out searching amongst the most inappropriate notes.
That said, on this site, we bang on about not all notes need to belong to a particular key, but the above philosophy helps in that now, I can hear those 'foreign' notes as actually being 'out of key' more easily, knowing the scale notes. so the above helps both ways.
When listening to a solo, bearing in mind whose solo it is, it's good to consider which scales that particular player favours. Makes sense! As certain phrases, and mini-phrases, will crop up using those notes, making the job somewhat easier.
Back in the day (as hinted at by Dekkadeci), I'd use an l.p. track, played normally at 33rpm, and set the player at 16rpm, which put the solo at almost exactly half speed, albeit an octave lower. These days, things are more sophisticated, and electronics will allow all sorts of messing with the speed and pitch.
The obvious is that the more yo do of just about anything, the easier it will become. So transcribe more simple solos, and try to get whole phrases down at a time, rather than note by note.
Pick a solo that you like and a good quality transcription of that solo done by someone else. Start transcribing (using slowing down tools in neccesarry) and after every few bars compare your results with the reference transcription.
There's no better use of time when you try learn to do the thing than just starting doing the thing however bad you might be at it initially. It brings lots of satisfaction and at the end you memorize a solo that you like, initally with lots of frustration but then it gets easier quite quickly
