Do non-tonic ear training exercises hurt music students?
I've always had a problem with some of the songs that are used to remember what an interval sounds like. Particularly, the ones whose melodies don't start on the tonic. For example, Here Comes The Bride is used for a perfect fourth interval, but that interval is not 1 to 4. It's 5 to 1. Similarly, My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean is used for the major sixth. However, that's not a 1 to 6 interval. It's a 5 to 3. So as accessible as these songs are, I feel like they've not giving good tools to hear notes relative to the tonal center of a given piece of music.
I trained my own ear by learning to sing the major scale in my head and then counting the degrees until I just knew which was which. So, having to sit through classes that didn't teach it this way made these other exercises seem like a hindrance. Can anyone confirm or deny my suspicions about these songs? And are there alternatives to learn melodic intervals relative to the root?
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No.
The intervals chosen for ear training don't have to based on the tonic of a song. 1 up to 6 (Do up to La) is a major sixth just like 5 up to 3 (Sol up to Mi) and just like 5 up to 1 (Sol up to Do) is a perfect fourth just like 1 up to 4 (Do up to Fa). You can take any relative interval for training it really doesn't matter if it is the tonic or not especially if it helps you isolate the interval.
The point of ear training is not only to be able to identity pitches based on keys, but identify intervals between notes. Not everything in music is nice and in the key and ear training is a very important skill for a musician.
Intervals are distances between notes. We do not require a tonic to discern an interval, so Here Comes The Bride, while perhaps becoming socially passe, works fine for demonstrating the interval of a fourth.
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