Hi all,

I’m currently getting ready for my grade two piano, which I’ll hopefully take early next year. My pieces and scales are practically perfect and my sight-reading is acceptable, but I’m finding the aural quite hard.

I find it easy enough to sing a piece back and to distinguish rhythms and styles. What I can’t do is hear the difference between naturals, sharps and flats, or sing one note of a chord. I also can’t name the intervals; I can sing the interval back but if someone asked me if the interval was a perfect fifth or an octave, I would have to sit there humming to myself for five minutes and even then I’d get it wrong 50% of the time.

My teacher says I just need to practise loads. The thing is, I’ve got the PC program Ear master school and have been using that for a while, but it doesn’t help that much. I can hear and sing a lot better after I’ve been using it for half an hour but it doesn’t help for the next morning, when what I’ve learnt completely goes out of my head.

Has anyone got any suggestions for any exercises I could do that might help (apart from the obvious)? Or is it really just practice, practice and practice? Also, not having taken a piano exam before, is it ok for me to sit there humming to myself for a while before answering the question?

Thanks!

Isn't the grade 2 Aural pretty silimar to the grade 1 ? I don't think you have to be able to sing notes from a chord or name intervals just yet.

Yeah, I just checked on the syllabus and you're right, which is good. My teacher tells me that I should practise it though, as it's my aural that is holding me back from taking any higher grades...