Note: Descriptions are shown in the official language in which they were submitted.
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1 Title: EAR TRAINING METHOD
2
3 This invention relates to a manner of training a person to
4 recognise and identify certain sensory items, such as sounds. The
6 invention is especially useful for training persons to recognise
6 and identify musical chords.
7
8
9 BACKGROUND TO THE INVENTION
11 There is a teaching aid that is wall known for teaching reading,
t2 called Flash Cards. The flash-cards are shown, in random order, to
13 the student, each card for a short time. The flash-cards have
14 respective words printed thereon, and the student must guess or
state the word. The flash-cards can be shuffled, and presented to
is the student in random order, whereby the student cannot learn the
17 words simply by remembering which word comes next in a series.
18
19 The invention provides a system for presenting musical chords, and
2o the like, for identification. The system may be identified, by
21 comparison with flash-cards, as a FLASH CHORD (TMj system. It is
22 an aim of the invention to provide a convenient and economical
23 means whereby a student can be presented with musical chords, or
24 the like, for identification, in much the same way as flash-cards
are used to present a student with words for identification.
28
27
28 GENERAL FEATURES OF THE INVENTION
29
3o In its preferred form, the invention provides a Compact Disc, of
31 the very common 12 centimetre type. The CD includes several
32 tracks, in fact up to as many as ninety-nine tracks. Each track on
33 the CD has a first segment, on which is recorded a chord or other
34 item to be recognised and identified (or memorised). The track
then has a second segment, which comprises a pause of silence. The
36 track then plays a recorded announcement, in voice, as to what the
37 chord actually was, i.e C-major, etc. The CD may have all the
38 chords played on a single instrument, or on several instruments.
39
4o The said CD is played on a CD-player, of the kind which has a
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1 facility for random selection of the tracks. The tracks come up in
2 random order, and the student seeks to identify each chord before
3 the announcement confirms or denies his answer.
4
The system is suitable for private drilling by the student, since
a the feedback to the student is immediate. The system is also
7 suitable for testing, in which the music teacher observes the
s student's performance, and can quickly recognise which particular
s aspects are giving the student trouble.
11 The system is aimed at improving the student's ability to sight-read
12 rapidly from printed sheet music. The system is also aimed at
13 recognising the structure of a piece of music "by ear", i.e to be
14 able to play the music simply from having heard it. For example,
in order to be able to play music by ear, i.e to be able to listen
16 to a tune or piece of music, and then try to play that music on the
17 piano, or on the guitar, a person has to be able to identify the
18 chords he hears - here a major chord, there a minor-7th, and so on.
is
2o For sight reading, a student wishes to learn how to look at printed
21 sheet music, and to "visualise", in his mind's ear, how that music
22 will sound, when played. A person who has this skill of sight-
23 reading at its most refined is able to look at a piece of sheet
24 music, perhaps of an orchestral work, and to make a meaningful
assessment whether he likes the way the flutes come in, in bar 74.
26
27 Such skill is perhaps not available to all. But even to those to
28 whom it is available, the skill has to be learned, which means it
2s has to be learned systematically. When learning to read, for
3o example, a child learns the letters of the alphabet as individual
3i elements. These are the basic building blocks of words, without a
32 mastery of which the words themselves can only be learned by rote.
33 A mastery of the building blocks of language is acquired step by
34 step, progressively enabling the child to build his own words.
36 So with music. A mastery of the building blocks of music, i.e
37 chords, similarly moves in steps, whereby an easy familiarity with
3s the basic building blocks leads on, in steps, to the more refined
3s skills. First, the student learns to manage chords, in isolation.
4o Then, he learns to manage chords as sets, e.g dominant, 7th, sub-
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1 dominant, relative minor, etc. Then, he learns the traditional
2 ways music is constructed, as chord sequences, from simple
3 accompaniments, as in a 12-bar pop-tune, to complex but highly
4 structured tensions and resolutions, as in a Schubert sonata. He
does this first with a single instrument, such as piano or guitar,
a for which the sheet music presents the chord as an integrated,
7 easily recognisable, pattern of notes. Then he progresses to doing
8 it with chords as played by a whole orchestra or band, where the
9 difficulty of discerning the chords is compounded by the fact that
1o the notes are spread over many instruments. But the skill of
11 recognising how even the most complex multi-instrument music is
12 constructed can be learned the more easily, by a thorough
13 grounding, step by step, in the skills as taught by the CD system.
14
The CD system as described herein may be regarded as being valuable
1e at all levels, from a child taking his first piano lesson, to a
17 maestro honing his listening and interpretive skills.
18
19 It may be noted that the effect of flash-cards, as used for
2o teaching words to children, can be accomplished alternatively by
21 programming a computer to flash words on the screen, in random
22 order, for identification by the student. So with the Flash Chords
23 (TM) system - a computer could be programmed to randomise the
24 presentation of musical chords, as sounds, in a similar way.
However, as explained in detail herein, the CD system lends itself
2s very well, and very economically, to a Flash-Chords-based system
27 for learning music.
28
29
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS
31
32 By way of further explanation of the invention, exemplary
33 embodiments of the invention will now be described with reference
34 to the accompanying drawings, in which:
36 Fig 1 is an illustration of a Compact Disc, and of a CD-player, for
37 putting the invention into practice.
38 Fig 2 is a diagrammatic representation of what is recorded on some
39 of the tracks of the CD .
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1 The apparatuses shown in the accompanying drawings and described
2 below are examples which embody the invention. It should be noted
3 that the scope of the invention is defined by the accompanying
claims, and not necessarily by specific features of exemplary
embodiments.
6
7 The Compact Disc 20 shown in Fig 1 has material recorded thereon,
s the material being separated, on the CD, into several separate
9 tracks.
to
~1 The CD-player 23 shown in Fig 1 has a selector control 24 for
~2 setting the CD-player into random-play mode. Many CD-players, as
13 in Fig 1, have a specific button 24 that can be pressed to enter
14 the random-track mode. Other players have a mode button which,
when held pressed, sequences through a number of track selection
1s modes, of which normal sequential mode is one, and random mode is
another. The single button 24 is slightly more convenient, but the
invention can be used with either kind of CD-player. It is
19 recognised that there are very few proprietarily-available
2o CD-players that do not have some way of setting the CD-player to
2i play the tracks on a random basis.
22
23 On many CD-players, the random mode can be set so that the tracks
24 follow each other automatically, or so that the user must press a
"continue" button to step to the next randomly-selected track.
26
27 Fig 2 shows the manner of arranging what is recorded on the tracks
28 of the CD. The first track 25 has three segments, 26,27,28. In
29 the 1st segment 26 (first, that is to say, in time, i.e the first
3o segment 26 is the segment that is heard first when the track 25 is
3t played) a musical chord has been recorded. For example, the 1st
32 segment 26 of track 25 is a recording of the notes middle-C, the E
33 next above, and the G next above that, played together on a piano,
34 whereby the segment 26 is a pre-recording of a C-major triad.
3s The lst segment 26 lasts for a few seconds. The 1st segment is
37 then followed (in time) by the 2nd segment 27, which comprises a
3s pause, of silence. The 2nd segment lasts long enough to give the
3s student the opportunity to recognise and identify the chord, and to
4o speak out the name thereof. The 3rd segment 28 comprises a
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1 recording of spoken words, and is an announcement of the name of
2 the chord, thus "C-major". The spoken words may include such other
3 information as, for example, whether the chord is inverted, and at
4 which octave it is pitched. If desired, the spoken words may omit
5 the reference as to which key the chord is in, and may just state
a the type of chord.
7
a The second track 29 also has three corresponding segments, but in
9 this case the chord recorded, and described, is C-minor-7th.
11 The rest of the tracks on the CD 20 are prepared in a similar way,
12 each illustrating a different chord.
13
14 In use, the student sets the control 24 on the CD-player 23 to
"random play". He then listens to the tracks 25,29... as they come
16 up in random order, and he attempts to identify each chord as it is
17 played, before the 3rd segment voice confirms or denies his answer.
18
1s Each track is in the region of fifteen or twenty seconds long, as
2o to total playing time. The pause after the playing of the chord
21 should be in the region of five or seven seconds. Of course,
22 ninety-nine twenty-second tracks amounts to a total playing time of
23 thirty-three minutes, which can easily be accommodated on a CD.
24 Indeed, there is ample room, per track, to present more material
than just a single chord, if that is desired.
28
27 CD-players generally have provision for dealing with up to ninety-
28 nine tracks. The number ninety-nine comes from the fact that the
2s track display 30 on the CD-player has two digits. There is no
3o technical reason why CD-players could not select from a larger
31 number of tracks, and no reason why the CD itself should be limited
32 to ninety-nine tracks. However, as a matter of actual fact,
33 virtually all CD-players on the market have a two-digit display as
34 to which track has been selected, whereby the CD-player cannot
handle more than ninety-nine tracks per CD.
36
37 It is a common option for CD-players to be capable of holding more
3s than one CD, in a magazine. Such CD-players can be set to randomly
39 select any track on any disc. The display, in that case, has a
4o third digit 32, but this third digit is used to indicate which CD
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1 the selected track has been selected from. The number of tracks
2 per CD that can be accommodated is still ninety-nine.
3
4 So, the number of tracks present on the CD should not exceed
ninety-nine. Of course, it would be possible to develop a
6 CD-player which accommodated more tracks than just ninety-nine, and
7 to develop a CD which made use of that player, and had, say, 999
8 tracks, or 9999. It is recognised that the practical limitation is
9 to ninety-nine tracks per CD, the limitation being imposed by the
presence, in the market, of the large numbers of CD-players which
11 have two and only two digits for displaying which track has been
12 selected.
13
14 Of course, the limitation to ninety-nine tracks on the CD means
that the capability of the CD format to hold large quantities of
18 recorded material is not being fully utilised. However, it is also
17 recognised that the limitation of the number of tracks to ninety-
18 nine tracks is in fact just about right.
19
2o If there were only a small number of tracks, the student might too
21 quickly learn the chords on the tracks, not from working out and
22 recognising just what chord is being played, as a chord, but, in
23 effect, from identifying the track from the remembered sound for
24 that track, and then remembering what the announcer says is the
chord on that track. The aim is for the student to say: "That
28 sounds like C-major-7th", rather than for the student to say: "That
27 sounds like track 3 and I remember that the announcement for track
28 3 is C-major-7th." The latter is a possibility if the total number
29 of tracks is small, but can be ignored as a possibility once the
3o number of tracks is more than a few dozen.
31
32 On the other hand, if the total number of tracks were very large,
33 i.e much over a hundred or so, even after a long period of randomly
34 accessing the tracks the student still would not have heard some of
the tracks. Also, of course, there is a limit to the number of
36 possible musical chords, and more than about a hundred would simply
37 be a matter basically of repeating chords already present.
38
39 Thus, it is recognised that the limitation to ninety-nine tracks,
4o far from being a problem, is in fact highly appropriate to the
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1 learning system of the invention.
2
3 As mentioned, the idea is for the student to learn to recognise
each chord as a major triad, or as a minor 7th, etc, and not as the
sound that comes from track 14. Such a learning system may be
a regarded as applicable also to the learning of musical intervals.
7 Now, the 1st segment of the track contains a recording of a musical
8 interval, e.g a fifth, as a sequence of two notes. After a pause
a of silence, the 3rd segment of the track plays the recording of a
1o voice announcement confirming that the interval was a fifth.
11
12 To be able to quickly identify a musical interval as a semitone, or
13 as an augmented fourth, etc, is very useful to the student seeking
14 to improve his sight-reading. Students generally find it easy
enough, when reading printed sheet music, to recognise quickly that
ie an interval, as observed on the paper, is a fifth. But the ability
t7 to bring to mind, just as quickly, what a fifth actually sounds
18 like, is less readily acquired, and the CD system as described can
19 assist in that regard.
21 Thus, a CD can be produced, with up to ninety-nine tracks, each of
22 which contains a musical interval, in place of the chords as
23 previously described. If desired, a CD could be produced in which
24 some tracks have chords, and some tracks have intervals.
26 The CD system can also be used to promote the skill of rapidly
27 recognising chord sequences. Thus, the first segment of the track
28 may contain a recording of G-major-7th followed by C-major, and the
2s student would be expected to recognise this as being the resolution
of the dominant 7th to the major key chord. Again, although
31 theoretically the number of possible chord sequences is endless,
32 the student who has been drilled to recognise a few dozen (i.e
33 within the limitation of ninety-nine tracks) of the more important
34 chord sequences, and to recognise the sequences by what they sound
36 like, using the CD system, is at a considerable advantage.
36
37 It may be noted that the number of tracks, i.e ninety-nine, is
38 quite unsuitable for some other applications. For example, it
39 might be considered that the random access facility of a CD-player
4o could be employed to provide a game of a spot-the-tune type. A CD
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1 containing the tunes would be placed on the CD-player, and set to
2 random tracking, then the participants have to guess the tunes as
3 they come up in random order. But ninety-nine tracks is far too
4 small a number for that kind of game. The participants would
quickly learn all the tunes, just by rote, if there are only
a ninety-nine of them. Many more tracks than ninety-nine would be
7 needed, for the game to be a test of knowledge of tunes selected at
random, and not a test simply of remembering what tunes are there.
9
The invention may be used to drill recognition of types of chords,
11 note intervals, chord sequences, etc, as described. It will be
12 understood that in these cases, within limits, it does not matter
~3 if the tracks are repeated, so long as the tracks are not repeated
14 so often that little idiosyncrasies in the track itself start to
~5 become recognisable, and identifiable. So, again, it is noted that
18 ninety-nine is a more or less ideal number for repeated drilling
17 exercises, of the kind as described herein, where repetition, if it
~8 occurs, does not change the nature of what is being learned.
t9
2o It should not be understood as a limitation of the invention that
21 the CD must contain a full ninety-nine tracks. Rather, the
22 emphasis is that the upper limitation of ninety-nine tracks is not
23 in fact a problem for the system as described herein, for the
24 reasons as described. As regards a lower limit of the number of
25 tracks, as mentioned the number of tracks should be large enough
26 that the student does not start to recognise each track, i.e that
27 he can identify which track is being played. It is suggested that
2s the minimum number of tracks par CD, from this standpoint, should
29 be around forty or fifty.
31 At this number, the music teacher can be reasonably sure that, if
32 the student gets the right answer, it is because the student has
33 learned to identify and recognise the chords, not because he has
34 remembered what is on the individual track.
3s The CD system may be employed in conjunction with a written sheet.
37 The sheet 34 contains the musical symbol 35 for the chord,
3s interval, chord sequence, or other item being played. The written
39 symbols 35, one for each track, appear on the sheet in numerical
order of the tracks. Thus, if the chord as recorded on track
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1 twenty-eight is a major 7th, the sheet would include, at position
2 twenty-eight on the sheet, the written symbol for a major 7th. The
3 student could ascertain which track was played by looking at the
4 track display on the CD-player; or the announcement in the 3rd
segment might include the track number.
a
7 The number of the track should not be announced before the student
8 has given his answer. In fact, normal CD technology means that the
9 CD-player displays the track number before the track starts to play
io - the track identification data being positioned, on the track,
11 before the 1st segment 26 recorded on the track. So, the student
12 preferably should seat himself, while undergoing the drills, so
13 that he cannot see or read the track numbers on the CD-player
~4 display, as they come up in random order. It would be all too easy
for the student to acquire the habit, perhaps unconsciously, of
16 learning what is on a particular track, by rote, from the track
t7 number, if the track number were available to the student before or
18 while he is trying to recognise and identify the musical item on
is the track.
21 There are other things that have to be learned by drilling, which
22 number about a hundred. An example is the multiplication table.
23 Thus, a CD may be prepared, having ninety-nine tracks, in which the
24 lst segment of the track contains the drill element, e.g five times
nine. Then, after the 2nd segment pause, the 3rd segment contains
2s the voice announcement forty-five. While the CD system can be used
27 for drilling the multiplication table, such use is not quite so
28 suited to the CD system as the musical drills as described are
2s suited to the CD system. Of course, a person must remember the
3o multiplication table. But preferably, he should remember it as a
31 table. Learning by sound does not bring out the relationships.
32 That is to say, an important component of what really needs to be
33 learned, in respect of multiplication tables, is not present in
34 audio drilling. The CD system is of not so suited to drilling
things that are not actually themselves sounds, but are merely the
38 sound equivalents of something that is basically visual, and in
37 which a pattern is important, and the pattern can only be discerned
38 visually.
39
4o By contrast, the CD system is of course ideally suited to drilling
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1 things that are themselves sounds, and especially musical sounds.
2
3 It is much better for the student to be able to recall what five
4 times seven is from having learned the multiplication table
5 visually, so he can see and gain understanding of the patterns,
6 rather than from having remembered the sound. But the latter, of
7 course, does at least leave the person knowing his multiplication
8 tables.
a
1o So also, a person wishing to learn the periodic table of the
11 elements, by mental drilling, might try the CD system, on the basis
12 that the periodic table lends itself to learning ninety-nine items
13 of data. However, it is even more important with the periodic
14 table, than it was with the multiplication table, for the student
to understand the patterns and relationships, and this
is understanding can only come from visual assimilation of the data
17 that makes up the table. It is recognised that, with subjects such
18 as the periodic table, there would be little point in drilling by
1s random selection, since it is the periodicity that needs to be
learned.
21
22 Again, the CD system is of little use as an aid to the drilling of
23 vocabulary in a foreign language. For vocabulary training, the
24 first segment of a track says the word in the foreign language, and
the 3rd segment, after the pause, announces the equivalent word in
28 the native language. However, the CD system is limited to ninety-
27 nine tracks, and ninety-nine words is nowhere near enough to be
28 useful as a vocabulary builder (bearing in mind that participles
2s and words with the same root but different endings, all count as
separate words, and need their own tracks).
31
32 The CD system as described herein is for use when order of the data
33 is not relevant. If the data is of the type such that it should be
34 learned as a pattern, it had better be learned visually - though of
course learning it by random audio drilling is better than not
3s learning it at all. But the mind finds it all too easy to learn
37 things according to the order in which they are presented, even
38 when the order is immaterial to the thing learned. But where it is
3s important to learn the order, learning by means of a system that
randomises audio sounds can be contra-indicated.
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1 As mentioned, it would take away from the efficacy of the teaching
2 system as described herein if the student could identify what is on
3 the track by identifying the track itself. Thus, the designer
4 should take care not to make one or some of the tracks noticeably
longer than the others, because then the student might learn to
6 identify that track by its length, and remember what is on it that
7 way. The designer should see to it that there is nothing
s distinctive on any of the tracks that would enable the student to
9 identify what is on the track by identifying the track.
11 As mentioned, some CD-players have a specific button for "random
12 play". Other CD-players need to be programmed by the user, e.g by
13 pressing control buttons in sequence, in order to put the CD-player
14 in random-play mode. The specific-button is most convenient, while
programming for random play is next in convenience. At the other
16 end of the scale, there would be little point in using the flash-
17 chord CD with a CD-player that does not have a random-play
18 capability at all. But it is recognised that virtually all
19 CD-players do have random-play capability.
21 The CD system as described herein may also be used for training a
22 person to recognise absolute pitch, wherein a person hears a note,
23 in isolation, and can recognise it as e.g middle-C. However,
24 generally, the ability to recognise absolute pitch is not
particularly advantageous to a music student - not as compared with
26 the ability to quickly recognise and identify a chord or interval,
27 immediately upon hearing it.
28
29 As described, the invention in its preferred form makes use of a
3o conventional audio CD-player. Such CD-players are often operated
31 in a music system, whereby the sounds on the CD are played through
32 a hi-fi amplifier and loudspeakers. In other cases, the CD-player
33 is a component of a computer, and the sounds on the CD are played
34 through the speakers installed on the computer.
36 It is also possible for CDs to be played in a DVD player. The
37 expression CD-player as used herein should be understood as
38 including players generally that are capable of playing CDs, and
3s have a random play capability, and this can include a DVD player.
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1 DVD players do not have the limitation of only being able to access
2 ninety-nine tracks. However, as explained, it is recognised that
3 adding more tracks does not add much to the ability of the system
4 to drill the student. The more tracks, the more possible it is,
given that the tracks are selected randomly, that some of the
a tracks would never come up.
7
8 The use of a DVD player, and DVD discs, means that visual images
9 may be utilised. It is highly effective, when drilling students in
1o musical chords, for example, for the students to see the chords
11 actually being played.
12
13 When DVD technology is being used, the 3rd segment of the track may
14 contain a pre-recorded visual image of the chord being played on a
i5 piano, or guitar, and this would be displayed to the student (e.g
16 on a computer screen) along with the voice announcement.
17
18 The visual image may also (or instead) comprise an image of a music
19 staff, with the notes making up the chord marked thereon. When the
2o written forms of the chords as displayed on the computer, there
21 would be little point in retaining the sheet 34.
22
23 The expression record medium (RM) as used herein is intended to be
24 generic to both CD and DVD technolgy, and to other technologies
25 also, which might come to be developed, in which many separately-
26 slectable tracks are pre-recorded on the RM, and the RM-player can
27 be set to select which track to play, automatically, in random
28 order .
