Ear training sites for speech?

I play sax, flute, wind synthesizer, guitar, bass, drums, keyboard synth, and vocals in various levels of competency/incompetency. I play in a duo, and make my own backing tracks, from scratch.

I play music for a living, and have always used ear protection, but decades ago, a time-consuming diagnosis of an allergy took down my hearing to the point where I need h-aids. Then, along came COVID. It took down more.

When playing the flute, anything above the 2nd C from the bottom was out of tune, and anything above the octave on the high E (1st) string was out. I am getting improvement. Since I make my own backing tracks, I sometimes put in high strings, or synth sounds. Depending on the song.

I’ll look into LACE AI, thanks

@BobbyBoomer said:

So I wrote a little “song” to train myself to hear the high notes, and they are actually getting better. If anyone wants it, it’s in MIDI format, and I’ll be glad to share.

I would be interested.

If you’re interested in lower pitches training, see here:

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There is an English version.

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Wow, quite a set of instruments.
Flute is indeed high notes I play the guitar, so the highest guitar harmonics I’ve played is approx. 1330 Hz.

My fitter at Costco mentioned that listening to audiobooks while also reading along in the book helps retrain the brain with speech recognition.

Quick online search says this is called “Immersion Reading” and seems to indicate it should have some benefit.

”Reading while listening to an audiobook (often called Immersion Reading) boosts comprehension, speeds up reading, improves vocabulary, and sharpens listening skills by combining visual and auditory input, creating stronger memory retention, and helping with pronunciation, making it great for complex texts, language learning, or just getting through your TBR pile faster. While some find it enhances focus, others, especially auditory learners, might prefer just one method.”

Thanks y’all.

I especially like the audiobook option, so I could learn something while training. But I’m checking all of your fine suggestions out.

I don’t know if I can dedicate enough time for audiobooks, but I think I’ll try the concept out by doing a TED talk, or an NPR shop per day, listening while reading the transcript.

I think Terry Gross does nice interviews on Fresh Air, and there are plenty of others that can be short enough to devote a half hour per day to.

I’m listening to the pitch training I programmed as I do other work, and it seems to be helping. I’ll know for sure when I get my next hearing test.

I probably should have never mentioned the pitch training. Due to the loss of hearing, the pitches on the very high notes seem out of tune. The MIDI sequence I made seems to be working just fine. The high pitches are easier to hear now. Not perfect, but improving.

What I need most is the ability to understand spoken language. Since COVID, that has gone into the dumpster, especially when someone speaks too quickly or has relaxed diction.

I’ve bookmarked Parroto, for later investigation, Thanks.

I started immersion reading, and it’s too early to tell if it’s helping. But I find subjects with transcripts on-line that are interesting or educational to me, so it isn’t a waste of time. I’m streaming into my Phonaks via the TV Connector hooked to the headphone jack of an Android tablet.

Since I make my living as a musician, the pitch of those very high notes isn’t a game changer. I’ve been doing it so long, my fingers know if they are playing the right notes or not on the flute or the high end of the wind synthesizer. But understanding a person who comes up and asks for a special song is where I need the help the most. Sadly, noisy situations like a place where a musician gigs makes it especially challenging. Give the requester a few drinks of alcohol, and that compounds the problem.

Still working on it.