Even though this is an old thread, I find it interesting to learn how others use the program and how they "think" music.
If Foo's not here anymore I welcome anyone to answer in her place. Myself, I haven't used the program at all yet.
Foo wrote:Having trouble getting past level 18... (actually, I had trouble getting past all the levels after 13)
Level 13 doesn't sound like "no achievement", does it?
Foo wrote:Short of being able to sing in tune (which i've never been able to do..) is there any other way of learning the intervals?
There's also the interesting question on why you're doing this. Did you go for interval identification only or did you do the other exercises as well? What's your musical experience and what did you want to achieve?
Interval identification is a rather theoretical approach to music, I think. It's not at all dependent on singing abilities, so you're not out of luch at all! Hearing is a lot more relevant than the ability to produce a tone. There's also the ability to "think" tones without singning them, sometimes called hearing with "the inner ear". Singing them is only a step to take as a means of help to excercise the inner ear. If you don't like the singing part I see no reason not to develop the "thinking" by use of an instrument, the piano or a guitarr.
Foo wrote:The help files suggest singing do-re-mi or the the start of a song (e.g. morning has broken). But my singing is so bad that if I do sing, say, morning has broken, you could roll a dice on whether I sing the second note as a minor 3rd, major 3rd or perfect 4th....
Sometimes this suggestion fails because the melody is not known (or mistakenly memorized as a variation sung by your dear mother). You seems to say, though, that it's not the melody but only your vocal reproduction that fails. Question is then: Do you hear when you sing the right melody or are the alternatives all the same to you? Would you play "Stairways" for three weeks without being able to hear when you fall out of melody?
The use of familiar melodies are mainly a help to memorize a name for the interval, not the means of finding the interval at a dictate. I suggest you check the other parts of the program out as well, to see if there's another approach for you to take. Then I suggest using an instrument instead of singing and finally focusing the inner ear to how each interval sounds.
Foo wrote:Short of being able to sing in tune (which i've never been able to do..)
As already said, training is always a help. And I'm sure that you could improve in singing as well, if you want to and if you keep training.
Good luck!
