Identifying beats in notes

November 26, 2006 11:36 AM

Does anyone have tips on training ones ear to identify small differences between notes?

I am learning to tune my sitar. Conventional tuners don't work well for Indian classical music; the relationship between the notes are not only different from the equal tempered scale that most tuners use,they also vary by what pieces (ragas) are played.

The first (tonic) is tuned using a chromatic tuner, and subsequent strings are tuned by ear; I understand that I should look for notes slightly off by the presence of "beats". I have had some instruction in this, but find that on my own, I either don't hear these beats, or I hear them when they don't exist.

So how do I train my ear so that I can recognize these beats and tune properly?

Any and all tips/comments are welcome.

posted by rasputin98 to media & arts (10 comments total)

Having started on the piano, then taking up the cello as well really helped in this instance. I'd drone an open A or D or something, and play with matching the other strings in unison, and varying the pitch slightly up or down, and listening for how "slightly sharp" and "slightly flat" sounded and felt.

That's probably the easiest (and most fun) way: Get a bowed string instrument, and play with unisons and microtones.
posted by stewiethegreat at 11:52 AM on November 26, 2006

Practice, and keep on practicing. Perfect pitch can be developed in anybody, with practice... if you have a keyboard or tuner, hit random notes with your eyes closed and try to guess what they are. If you get it wrong, play the note and then hum it, then play it again and hum it an octive lower or higher. (There are programs that'll help with this, but I can't remember what they're called right now). Lather, rinse, repeat.
posted by zallen at 11:55 AM on November 26, 2006

Gnu Solfege is a free software program for Windows or Linux that you can use to practice hearing note intervals. It will probably also work on a Mac using X11 for Mac. I'm not sure how well it will work with Indian music but it has helped me with recognizing note intervals.
posted by calumet43 at 12:14 PM on November 26, 2006 [1 favorite]

Also: EarToner. Free and Java-based, so should run on just about anything.
posted by cmyers at 12:20 PM on November 26, 2006

Use your chromatic tuner to tune two strings to the exact same pitch. You can then adjust one of the pegs such that one of the strings goes barely out of tune to where you can hear the beats.
posted by rhizome at 12:32 PM on November 26, 2006

Thanks everybody for your tips. I took a look at Solfege and EarToner, and am going to try rhizome's and stewiethegreat's suggestions. Zallen's advice about practice is very relevant to all music.

Love MeFi!

R
posted by rasputin98 at 1:26 PM on November 26, 2006

The brain creates/changes cells to sense small differences in stimuli it regularly gets. Thus, as you play music, your brain dedicates more cells to listening and telling pitches apart.

All you have to do is do it.
posted by KRS at 2:01 PM on November 26, 2006

Microtonal intervals are measured in "cents" — hundredths of a semitone; there are 1200 cents in an octave. Some electronic tuners will display the actual pitch in cents of the note you're playing.

Now, I don't know much about Indian music specifically, but Googling "raga microtone cents" seems to turn up several pages — this one, f'rinstance — that list the pitches of various raga notes in cents. So that, plus a tuner that displays cents, should let you do what you need to do.
posted by nebulawindphone at 4:17 PM on November 26, 2006

That's probably the easiest (and most fun) way: Get a bowed string instrument, and play with unisons and microtones.

You could do this with any stringed instrument, not just the bowed strings.
posted by ludwig_van at 7:39 PM on November 26, 2006

Now, I don't know much about Indian music specifically, but Googling "raga microtone cents" seems to turn up several pages — this one, f'rinstance — that list the pitches of various raga notes in cents. So that, plus a tuner that displays cents, should let you do what you need to do.


This is a useful reference and I intend to use it to check my tuning. That being said, I do need to train my ear to listen for the differences. A lot of the sitar notes are generated by pulling the string along the fret, and a good ear is needed to do that correctly. Moreover, the sitar can go out of tune while playing, and one is expected to adjust the tuning during playing as well.
posted by rasputin98 at 1:43 PM on November 27, 2006