Call-and-response Exercises 1.2

A game to develop your ear

Let’s play a game of call-and-response. This will help you to:

👂Develop your ear

🎸Play with others

💡Practice and play creatively

How this works

  1. Listen to what I play
  2. Play it back
  3. Repeat the exercise until you can easily play back what you hear

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Let’s play

Exercise 1: D1

Drone: E

Exercise 2: D0 and D1

 

 

Exercise 3: D2

 

 

Exercise 4: D1, D2

 

 

Exercise 5: D0, D2

 

 

Exercise 6: D0, D1, D2

 

 

Exercise 7: D3

 

 

Exercise 8: D0, D3

 

 

Exercise 9: D3, A0

 

 

Exercise 10: D1, D2, D3

 

 

Exercise 11: D0,1,2,3

 

Exercise 12: D0,1,2,3, A0

 

Practice Variations

  • Plucking instead of bowing
  • Singing instead of fiddling
  • Audiation (“hearing it in your head”) instead of fiddling
  • Record your own call-and-response exercises

More exercises like this can be found here: Call-and-response Central

Continue on to Fais Do Do – Beginner >>

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Leave a Reply

25 responses to “Call-and-response Exercises 1.2”

  1. Hello, I got a couple of tuners on my iPhone and I put them at 440Hz. I think I’m going sharp. Are your recordings on 440? More than happy to adjust what I have since I would like my open strings to match. I mean, what I’m playing is close enough. I’m trying to fast review your earlier lessons because who knows what I don’t know–even though I can stumble through many tunes–maybe I’m a rusty intermediate or something like that. All the best,
    Rosalie Werback
    (“werbose”)
    P.S. I’m renting a violin but going to purchase a modest decent one from my local violin shop, and I’ll be signing up for your full course as soon as I find my credit card–I wanted to make sure that I’ll actually go and buy that instrument and get on with this. The call and response modules are meditative. I’m not even stressed that I’m pretty bad at it because the repetition is peaceful. ro.

    1. Hello Rosalie 🙂
      Great sharings, thanks for this. Yes, I can confirm Jason’s recordings are using the 440Hz frequency.
      Great noticing with how you’re experiencing it. Happy playing and do reach out anytime!

  3. Oh, I’m thrilled. I’ve been practising for more than half a year now, I do the call and response exercise from time to time. Today I felt like I could really hear the notes.

    1. Hi Claudia, great topic you raise.

      Here are some Practise Variation tips included in another call and response page that may be useful:
      Respond with plucking instead of bowing
      Respond with singing instead of fiddling
      Respond with Audiation (“hearing it in your head”) instead of fiddling
      On your own, alternate between singing and fiddling small tune phrases
      On your own, alternate between playing something in the low and high octave
      Record your own call-and-response exercises

      Some thoughts I have:
      as the caller is creating sounds (as they make each individual sound and immediately after each note – during the calling process), sound them with my voice, in my head, visualize the notes in my head, strum the notes with the caller in guitar position, etc – this may be considered cheating to some, though I often find myself utilizing various techniques such as these as I’m experiencing the caller make the strings
      and also simply going back and repeating the same string of notes it until I get it. 🙂

      It’d be interesting to hear any specific methods you have for remembering longer strings of Call and Response.

      Happy playing 🎶

  6. I play piano so at first, when I saw the call and response exercises I thought they were too simple but in reality, violin is a different beast and not as intuitive as a piano (you go left and you get lower in pitch, etc). With strings, you need to learn that as you press more fingers on one string, you get higher. That concept seems simple but it is not when you have never played a string instrument so I am no longer thinking call and response exercises are simple. They are just perfect to train you with all those little things that end up adding to tons of good stuff.

  7. I’m the exact same! I’ve spent several months on the first couple of modules, and am doing my best to work through the material slowly so I know I’ve got it down before moving on (which is the complete opposite of how my brain likes to work, haha). Some days I feel like I’m not making any progress, and other days I feel like it’s almost too easy, but when I take a step back and think about how I sounded the month before, I realize I am actually getting better. I would definitely recommend recording yourself every once in a while so you have an actual record of how you’re progressing 🙂

  8. I’m learning very slowly, but I don’t seem to be getting any worse. Have “looped” “call& response” exercises many times. Am finding the whole learning process enjoyable. A great program that I would recommend.

    1. I’m the exact same! I’ve spent several months on the first couple of modules, and am doing my best to work through the material slowly so I know I’ve got it down before moving on (which is the complete opposite of how my brain likes to work, haha). Some days I feel like I’m not making any progress, and other days I feel like it’s almost too easy, but when I take a step back and think about how I sounded the month before, I realize I am actually getting better. I would definitely recommend recording yourself every once in a while so you have an actual record of how you’re progressing 🙂

  10. Just finished Call and Response 1.2- Love this ear training! I click the little down arrow so I get the screen where I can move the slider so I can repeat difficult patterns over and over until I get them. Sometimes helps to take a break and come back.

  14. When you do D, E, F#, G, A, F# Do you leave D1,D2 and D3 pressed down when you play the A or you lift all fingers? I am asking because I would much rather leave the fingers pressing on the D string notes but if I do that, my fingers do touch the A string and it sounds ugly. So it is safer to lift them but it is also risky as you may not bring them down in the same place.

    1. Good question. It’s situational.
      It’s good to be able to hold down 1st, 2nd and 3rd finger on the D string while playing open A (A0). But when actually playing a tune, it may make sense to lift the fingers in certain situations.
      When in doubt, try it both ways. See if you can do it either way. Even if one way wins out, you become a more flexible fiddler by trying.