Training amount
Now let's talk about training amount.
How often and for how long should I practice with EQdrill?
In general, a widely accepted aspect about learning a new skill (or anything for that matter) is called spaced repetition. Getting better at frequency perception via ear training is no exception to that.
Therefore, if you're willing to put in an hour of your time per week into ear training, then it's always better to split that time up into 20 to 30 minute sessions and space them out across the given week.
This needs emphasizing:
Cramming two hours of ear training into a single session will not give you better results than having 3 sessions, spaced throughout the week, with each session being about 20 to 30 minutes in length.
Why?
While we are not trying to make a detour into neuroscience here, let's just focus on two aspects:
- ear fatigue
- sleep
Ear fatigue
The first, "ear fatigue", is something you likely have experienced for yourself during producing, mixing or mastering. Eventually our ears (and brain) get tired, which makes it increasingly harder to make fine judgements about small EQ changes. Therefore pushing yourself to do ear training past the point of noticeable fatigue is counter productive. It's much better to go for a quality ear training session, than going for quantity by forcing yourself to do a two hour long session with your ears being noticeably fatigued 30 minutes into it and your answers' quality declining.
That being said, when it comes to doing repetitions while your ears aren't fatigued yet, it's a different story. While it makes sense to reflect on your answers for a bit when they are off (just so you can understand why you might have been off), it's usually more beneficial for sake of getting results to not go overboard with it either. After all, a wrong answer will give that snap point a worse rating, so EQdrill will make sure to bring that snap point up again later on. Rather focusing on getting in as many quality repetitions in a given, "non fatigued" session as possible will give the best results over time.
As we've already seen in previous chapters, there's still ways to "review" your peformance once you've cleared a heatmap, so it's not mandatory to review every single turn in depth after you've given an answer.
Sleep
Sleep is one of those things that are very essential for learning. After all, it's during sleep when our brains have the chance to process and consolidate all the new information they took in during a given day. If that day included some challenging ear training that pushed your current capabilities, then your brain will try to make sense of it during sleep.
This is also part of the reason why spaced repetition works: it gives your brain more chances to:
- remember and re-apply what we've learned during ear training during previous training sessions
- "sleep on it" and consolidate the experience
If one would go for the "cram two hours once a week" strategy, then one would simply be cutting their brains short on how much learning could take place. While cramming for an exam to get a good grade can have its place at times, ear training for the long run and steady progress certainly isn't one of those things.
Maintenance
On a final note, maintaining one's frequency perception skills isn't the same as pushing those same skills further.
If the goal is simply to "maintain" in absence of any other kind of EQ-ing (mixing, mastering, etc.), then one, maybe two sessions per week can already be quite helpful. If on the other hand it's about improving those skills noticeably, then going for something closer to 3 or 4 (or even more) times per week can be beneficial.
Just remember: it's about getting in as many quality repetitions in a given, "non fatigued" session as possible to get the most out of your ear training. So while EQdrill certainly can help you in finding your weakspots, in challenging what needs challenging and keeping the ear training engaging during all that, you will still need to keep the things mentioned in this chapter in mind to get the most out of your training time.