Short & sweet lessons on what ear training is and isn’t… and how to hear, internalize, and perform music like a real musician…
Table of Contents
What is Ear Training?
Ear training is simply the process of connecting musical experience with musical knowledge… in such a way that it elevates and expands your skills in hearing, feeling, understanding, and performing music.
Ear Training is the process:
- of connecting the way you hear and feel the music with the way you think about the music.
- of connecting a [right brain] musical experience with [left brain] musical knowledge.
- of connecting the sounds and feelings you’re experiencing with something you can store and retrieve from long-term memory. This something can be a declarative memory (a name) or procedural memory (a skill).
- of storing a sound-feeling in your mind’s ear while connecting it to other information that enables you to retrieve and express that sound-feeling in performance. Such information may include a scale type, solfege syllable, melodic fragment, interval type, chord type, chord progression, roman numeral analysis, notes on a score, visuospatial layout of keys on the keyboard, or sequence of physical gestures.
Ear Training, done right:
- enables you to understand what you are hearing.
- enables your mind’s ear (not your intellect) to be the leader when you perform.
- teaches you how music works.
- teaches you how to listen like a musician.
- teaches you how to listen for meaning.
- teaches you how to hear (comprehension) and speak (fluency) the language of music.
- enables you to play what you are hearing and feeling rather than what you are merely thinking.
- enables you to play “by ear” rather than “by dot”, “by finger”, or by anything other than your ears.
- is about performing better, not about getting better grades on a music theory test.
- enables you to “speak” the language of music naturally, by ear, just as we learn to speak any spoken language… by simply expressing the sound-feelings in your mind’s ear directly as physical execution at the piano.
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How to Listen Like a Musician
There’s a lot more to listening like a musician that most people appreciate. Keys to listening like a musician include the following:
- Musical comprehension is about connecting what a musical something is (a noun) to what that musical something does (a verb).
- Ear training isn’t just about hearing sounds, but about being receptive to feelings and functions.
- Particular musical patterns perform particular musical functions that we are naturally wired to hear and feel.
- Musical patterns move us; we respond to them both physically and emotionally.
- Successful listening isn’t achieved by “trying” to hear something. It’s about being receptive to the sound-feeling you are experiencing.
- You can’t hear what you don’t listen to or listen for, just as you can’t see something if your eyes are closed, are looking in the wrong direction, or are focused on the wrong thing.
- There are as many ways to listen as there are ways to direct your attention.
- You can focus on many aspects of the music: the pulse, tempo, meter, pitches, pitch relationships, phrase length, form, tonality, melody, harmony, bass line, stylistic elements, dynamics, articulations, etc.
- The sound, feeling, and function of a musical pattern always depends on the context.
- The location of a note within the fabric of time (the form, meter, phrase, rhythm) has a huge impact on the way it sounds, feels, and functions.
- Melody, harmony, scales, chords, chord progressions, meter, rhythm, phrasing, and form need each other in order to make musical sense.
- Your capacity to understand music expands every time you internalize a meaningful musical pattern… by ear, intellect, eye, and muscle.
- Can you think of some others? (Please comment below)
Common Practice Musical Patterns to Listen For
As a musician, you’re not just listening to the music; you’re also listening for musical patterns. Here, for your consideration, is a list of musical patterns that are used time and time again in every kind of music:
- Key Centers (Do)
- Tonalities (Major, Minor, Mixolydian, Dorian, Major Blues, Minor Blues, etc.)
- Tempos.
- Meters.
- Forms.
- Rhythms (Straight, shuffle, swing, bossa nova, etc.).
- Rhythmic Motives.
- Phrase Lengths.
- Articulations.
- Dynamics.
- Timbre.
- Texture.
- Repetition.
- Consonance & Dissonance.
- Melodic Contours.
- Sequences.
- Call and Response.
- Syncopation.
- Rubato.
- Chord Progressions.
- Cadences.
- Turnarounds.
- First and Second Endings.
- Chord Voicings.
- Chord Inversions.
- Accompaniment Styles (Ostinato, Chord Roots & 5ths, Block Chords, Alberti Bass, Stride, Arpeggios, Walking Bass Lines, etc.).
- Changes of Register.
- Counterpoint.
- Pedal Points.
- Suspensions.
- Appoggiaturas.
- Chromaticisms.
- Pickups.
- Glissandos.
- Tremolos.
- Passing Tones.
- Neighbor Tones.
- Chord Tone Embellishments.
- Secondary Dominants.
- Passing Chords.
- Key Changes.
- Intros.
- Endings.
- Codas.
- Can you think of some others? (Please comment below)
Words of Encouragement
All the above sounds like a lot to learn and pay attention to, but it’s not as hard as you think. Because the ability to recognize each pattern is a learnable skill if you study and practice the right things the right way. That’s why Piano-ology always integrates theory and ear training, emphasizes learning by doing, and connects the way your experience the music with the way you think about the music. This will all make sense and start coming together as you study scales, chords, chord progressions, form, meter, rhythm, and more… all of which will enable you to listen with an educated ear.
The gift of musical intuition is the inevitable reward for internalizing lots of musically-useful patterns… by ear, intellect, eye, and muscle. ~fjp
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Absolute Pitch & Relative Pitch
What every musician needs to understand about the true nature of Absolute Pitch (AP), and Relative pitch (RP) and how this informs (or not) the development of your aural comprehension (ear training).
Absolute Pitch Defined
Absolute Pitch (AP), often called perfect pitch, is the ability to identify a musical pitch in the absence of any other tonal points of reference.
Absolute Pitch is the ability to instantly recognize a pitch in any musical context–no matter the particular piece, no matter the key center, no matter the tonality, and no matter what melodic or harmonic function those notes perform. For those of us not so endowed, it’s a miraculous and humbling thing to witness.
And AP is a rare gift indeed. According to widely accepted studies, it’s estimated that AP is possessed by roughly one in every 10,000 people. But even then, AP occurs on a spectrum of degrees (If you ask, Frank would be happy to share his research on the subject).
Relative Pitch Defined
Relative Pitch (RP) is the ability to hear how musical tones relate to other pitches within your field of perception.
For example, Relative Pitch is the ability to recognize the unique sound-feeling of the note E when played in the context of a C Major tonality.
RP is the way that almost all of us are naturally able to perceive and enjoy melodic and harmonic relationships between sounds.
There are two main types of relative pitch reference:
- With respect to the prevailing key center Do. This is the purview of Solfege ear training, where an enduring sense of key center provides the pitch reference, and all other pitchs can be heard and felt with respect to this key center.
- With respect to any note currently in your field of perception. This is the purview of Interval ear training. This can be useful for hearing the local relationship between notes in a melody or chord progression, when the tonal center is ambiguous, or when there is a change of key center.
Interval ear training isn’t does not contradict Solfege. Interval ear training complements Solfege and adds another dimension to your relative pitch listening skills.
A HUGE Takeaway: Unlike Absolute Pitch, Relative Pitch is a learnable skill to various degrees, but be careful about what think Relative Pitch Ear Training is all about (Hint: Alas, the internet is full of bad advice and snake oil salesmen).
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Can You Learn Perfect Pitch (Absolute Pitch)?
The honest and possibly disappointing answer is “It depends” and requires some explanation. Allow me (Frank) to answer by sharing five experiences on the subject, presented with both an open mind and realistic expectations, so that you can decide how best to invest your precious time and energy on ear training.
Regarding the David Lucas Burge Perfect Pitch Course
Many years ago, I bought and tried “the” so-called perfect pitch course. Despite a diligent, open-minded effort on my part, it did not work for me. I heard and felt nothing, not even the slightest hint of possibility that I already possessed or might develop the ability to hear pitches as effortlessly as I see colors. I spent dozens of hours over the course of several months giving it an honest hearing, but did not experience even the faintest glimmer of progress or hope.
Regarding the Musicians I’ve Known Personally
Of the hundreds of musicians that I have met or played with over the decades, only four of them had perfect pitch to my knowledge. Two of them claimed that they “taught themselves” absolute pitch and that I could, too. Both of them confidently, and independently, suggested the very same procedure: Go to the piano, play middle C, and listen, day after day until you “memorize” what it sounds like, then move on to the next note. I have been giving this an honest effort for several years now, but have yet to hear or feel anything. I don’t doubt their veracity. I suspect, though, that these “learners” of AP already possessed the predisposition for acquiring it without realizing how special they really are.
Advice from Professors at Berklee Music School
I took two relative pitch ear training classes at Berklee music school, where I asked my professors if AP was a learnable skill. They did not answer with a crisp yes or no. They each strongly suggested that my time (and anyone’s time) would be much better spent focusing on relative pitch training and associative listening.
How Many Professional Musicians Have Absolute Pitch?
I asked the same professors what percentage of faculty and students at Berklee and in the professional music business possessed AP. They said it was very few and emphasized that it is not as precious a gift as one might think. They reminded me that even those blessed with perfect pitch need to master the many other skills that we all need to master: reading, technique, rhythm, comping, soloing, performance, etc. One of those professors added that, of those who he’s know who had the gift, many had issues playing with “soul” and feeling.
Peer-Reviewed Studies of Absolute Pitch
As a serious student of psychology in the 2000s, I read all the peer-reviewed AP papers I could find in reputable psychology journals. (I am happy to share them with anyone who is interested). That literature search yielded three important conclusions:
- While AP is very difficult to study because of it’s rarity, the general conclusion, based on a combination of anecdotal evidence and controlled experiments, is this: AP requires a rare combination of nature (genetic predisposition) and nurture (early musical exposure and training) to blossom.
- Even for those who have Absolute Pitch, it develops only in varying degrees. For example, some can only recognize middle C or only notes within a certain register, or only when played on a particular instrument.
- I have yet to find any reputable research that demonstrates that perfect pitch can be learned after early childhood. Such widely-accepted, peer-reviewed research holds the most water in my book. If you know of any research to the contrary, please let me know. (Note: To date, nobody has come forward with such.)
Frank’s Thoughts about Learning Perfect Pitch
My experiences above have convinced me that I do not have Absolute Pitch and that I am not capable of learning AP, at least not in any musically measurable and useful way. That said, I would never discourage anyone else from taking the time to give AP an honest chance themselves. You might pleasantly discover that you have the gift.
If you have it, you will know immediately and won’t need a course. All you need is a tuned piano!
And should you discover that you have AP, be grateful. It is a very rare and special gift indeed. But you still need to work on your relative pitch and associative listening!
And if you do not have AP, do not despair. The majority of wonderful musicians do not have it. While it provides enormous advantages in certain situations to the select few who do possess it, such a gift by no means makes one musical. Because musicianship is so much more than the ability to hear the color of every note that enters your ears. Even those blessed with AP have plenty of other musical challenges to overcome, just like the rest of us mere mortals.
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Frank’s Take on Relative Pitch Ear Training Apps
The goal of using any ear training app should be to perform better, not to get better grades on an ear training test.
The Limitations of Ear Training Apps
In my experience, most relative pitch ear training apps have very limited utility and can actually hinder your progress… for at least ten important reasons:
- Most such apps typically present intervals without any meaningful musical context… that is, without any sense of tonality, harmony, meter, placement of notes within the meter, rhythm, or form.
- Even for apps that do present pitches in a musical context, the context is typically too narrow and contrived to be useful for real repertoire.
- Such apps do not typically engage all four musical intelligences–ears, intellect, eyes, and muscles.
- Such apps do not typically require you to actively generate the music… whether by singing or playing.
- Such apps typically ignore the fact that the musical meaning of a pitch or chord or sequence of pitches or chords is not just about how things sound, but about how they feel and function.
- Apps that do a decent job of presenting meaningful sounds in context are typically too limited, clunky, and hard to use as you fuss with settings such as key, tempo, meter, register, timbre, style, etc.
- Such apps may be effective, but effective does not necessarily mean useful. In other words, an app may train you to become quite skilled at doing something that doesn’t help you play better.
- Almost every chunk of music is enjoyed, learned, and performed as its gestalt, the principle of perception that recognize that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Ear training apps are great at doing the parts, but not so great at doing the wholes.
- The sound, feeling, and function of pitches, rhythms, scales, chords, and chord progressions can be internalized so much deeper and faster by using nothing more than your voice, the piano, and a rhythm track.
- Once you understand the basic concepts of how music works, your precious time and energy are infinitely better spent getting your ear training directly from the music that YOU want to play… because those are the sounds and feelings you want to internalize and keep in your repertoire.
Sidebar Note from Frank: I’ve been approached several times over the years to “review” and receive compensation for promoting some widely touted ear training apps, all of which shall remain nameless. In each and every case I’ve graciously declined to do so for two important reasons: 1) They all fall short of what you can already accomplish faster and more effectively using real music, your voice, and the piano for free, and 2) Doing so would violate the Piano-ology ethic of maintaining total independence from advertisers (as well as saving visitors from the annoyance of advertisements of any kind).
Advice: Download a Tuning App and Use It!
One type of app that is extremely valuable is a tuning app. Because singing in tune is an essential skill that greatly facilitates the internalization of the sound, feeling, and function of any pitch. We are not talking about developing perfect pitch. We are talking about pitch matching–the ability to play a note on the piano and then sing that note in tune with the note being played.
Frank routinely uses a tuning app that graphically shows how sharp or flat he’s singing in real time. This visual feedback is an extremely effective way to tune up your ears so that the sound you are hearing and feeling inside your head or outside your head is the sound that is coming out of your mouth. This easy to develop skill lays the foundation for hearing and feeling pitches in your mind’s ear.
Frank will not publicly tout any particular app, but email him (frank@piano-ology.com) and he’d be happy to tell you which one he likes and uses all the time.
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Comparative Ear Training
We humans think about and sense very few things in absolute terms. While musical pitches can be thought about and experienced in absolute terms, most humans perceive music in relative terms. And one way that we relate to musical sounds in a relative sense is by how they compare to each other… and compare to things we already know.
How to use Comparative Ear Training to build a huge library of stock musical ideas for performance… by ear, intellect, eye, and muscle… To understand how comparative ear training works and to be inspired to use it to build a library of stock musical ideas that enable you to speak the language of music with the same ease that you can read and speak these written words.
Some of these comparisons are a matter of degree: One sound may be louder/softer, higher/lower, brighter/darker, or more/less consonant/dissonant than another sound.
Other comparisons are a matter of type: Types of sounds include scales (major, minor, etc.), intervals (unison, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc.), Soflege syllables, chords (major, minor, diminished, etc.), and chord progressions.
Comparisons of Degree
When it come to musical sounds, comparisons of degree are pretty straightforward, as you will hear for yourself in the following comparative ear training tests…
Which is Louder? Which is Softer?…
Which is Higher? Which is Lower?…
Which is Brighter? Which is Darker?…
Which is More Consonant? Which is More Dissonant?…
Do any other comparisons of degree come to mind? (Please share in the comments)
Comparisons of Type
Your musicianship really goes to the next level when you start to think about and perceive sounds by type. This means that you can recognize and distinguish one type of sound from another type of sound. A great way to illustrate this is by example in the audio where we compare two distinct sound types and give a name to each experience (in this case “major” and “minor”)…
Once you’ve internalized (*) a sound-feeling using all four musical intelligences, it can become a reference for comparing and internalizing new sound-feelings in an ever expanding process of building a library of internalized sound-feelings but relating new music to things your already know.
(*) Internalization is the process of storing a sound-feeling in long-term memory along with any other information that enables you to perform it or compare it to other sound-feelings: a scale type, solfege syllable, melodic fragment, interval type, chord type, chord progression, notes on a score, visuospatial layout of keys on the keyboard, or physical performance.
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Relative Pitch Generalization
Relative Pitch Generalization is the innate ability of most humans to recognize harmonic relationships regardless of the absolute pitch. Specifically, once you recognize a sequence of pitches in the form of a scale, melody, or chord progression in one key, you will instantly and effortlessly be able to recognize that scale, melody, or chord progression in any key and any register, as demonstrated below.
Example of Relative Pitch Generalization
First, listen to “Old McDonald” in the key of C…
Now listen to “Old McDonald” in the key of Eb…
Let’s do one more: “Old McDonald” in the key of A….
And again notice that you immediately and effortlessly recognize the song no matter what key it’s in. In fact, we recognize this as as “Old McDonald” in any key for two reasons:
- The harmonic relationships between the notes and with respect to the key center remain the same no matter what key you are in.
- We are naturally wired to hear and recognize these harmonic relationships!
The HUGE Takeaway: Relative Pitch Generalization is the innate ability of almost all humans to hear and feel the harmonic relationships between pitches rather than their specific frequencies. This phenomenon enables us to study scales, melodies, chords, and chord progressions in relative, not absolute melodic and harmonic terms… and provides the basic skill required for doing Associative Listening.
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Associative Listening
The process of associative listening is utterly simple…
- Pay Attention (listen) to a chunk of music and be receptive to the sound-feelings over time.
- Associate (connect) those particular sound-feelings with knowledge that’s already stored or is able to be stored in your long-term memory. Such knowledge includes anything you know about scales, chords, chord progressions, solfege, rhythms, as well as the music notation, visuospatial arrangement of notes on the keyboard, as well as the physical choreography that expresses that chunk of music.
Associative listening works because the phenomenon of Relative Pitch Generalization enables us to instantly and effortlessly recognize a the relative pitch relationships of sounds, as illustrated in the examples below.
Examples of Associative Listening in Action
Listen to Frank demonstrate the association process using a famous chunk of music…
Please let Frank know if you’d like to hear other examples of associative listening in action.
Using Associative Listening to Build Your Repertoire
Associative Listening is the utterly simple process of adding meaningful musical patterns to your musical mind (just as you add new vocabulary and phrases to your spoken language).
The process goes like this: Take a musical chunk that you’d like to add to your repertoire (a melody, comping pattern, bass line, chord voicing, lick, riff, intro, ending, embellishment, etc.) and associate (connect) the sound-feeling of that musical chunk to something you already know about music. Of course, this requires that you understand the building blocks of music (meter, rhythm, form, scales, solfege, chords, chord progressions, roman numeral analysis, etc.), can map that musical understanding to the visuospatial layout and sequence of keys on the keyboard, and the physical choreography required to perform it.
If you commit yourself to making a few such connections every day you’ll quickly internalize tens, hundreds, thousands of such associations–by ear, intellect, eye, and muscle… each new association expanding your capacity to understand and speak the language of music… with the same ease that you can read and speak these written words.
Takeaway: “Being able to speak the language of music is the inevitable reward for internalizing lots of musically-useful patterns… by ear, intellect, eye, & muscle.” ~ frank peter
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Important Mindsets Regarding Ear Training
Music is a language.
- Music isn’t like a language. Music is a language.
- Ear training is about listening for and internalizing sounds, feelings, functions, and meanings–just like learning any language!
- Just like any other language, one goal is to understand what you are hearing (musical comprehension).
- Just like any other language, one goal is to be able to communicate something (musical fluency).
Music theory and ear training must be done together.
The way you think about the music should be aligned with the way you experience (hear & feel) the music. Therefore, music theory and ear training must be studied together. THIS is central to understanding how music works and what it means to really know your scales, chords, chord progressions.
Sidebar: Alas, it’s a sad state of music education that most of what passes for “music theory” hardly even mentions ear training.
Ear Training isn’t about training your ears.
Ear training is about connecting the sounds and feelings you’re experiencing with something you can store and retrieve from long-term memory. To that end, internalization is the process of storing a sound-feeling in your mind’s ear while connecting it to other information that enables you to retrieve and express that sound-feeling in performance. Such information may include a scale type, solfege syllable, melodic fragment, interval type, chord type, chord progression, roman numeral analysis, notes on a score, visuospatial layout of keys on the keyboard, or sequence of physical gestures.
Context is everything.
This point is so important that it must be repeated: Context is everything. Because our musical brains don’t just hear sounds. Our musical brains also feel sounds… and can sense the functions and meanings of sounds. This is why it’s so important (once you understand the basics of how scales, chords, and chord progressions work) to get most of your ear training directly from the music you’re playing.
Interval ear training is overrated.
An isolated interval, in and of itself, doesn’t typically make musical sense until it’s put into a larger musical context such as a melody or chord progression where factors such as the meter, placement within the meter, and relationship to the notes that come before and after become extremely important factors. This is why interval ear training has only limited value and why it’s so important to get most of your ear training from real music.
You are a human being, not a computer.
Internalizing a meaningful musical pattern isn’t just about how that pattern sounds, but more importantly about how it feels and functions. And to take things one step deeper, it’s also about the emotional impact of the sound. (Frank plans to produce a series of audio-heavy lessons in the “How Music Works” category that demonstrate what this means in practice.)
Singing out loud is a highly effective way to internalize sounds.
For at least four reasons:
- Singing out loud is an active, not a passive, process.
- Singing out loud requires you to generate something (which is how you perform music).
- Singing out loud uses and excites a variety of sensory, memory, and motor pathways in your brain.
- Singing out loud trains you to let your mind’s ear to be the leader when you perform.
Note: It’s ok if you’re not a vocalist. Simply do your best to sing, hum, or scat the sounds in a comfortable part of your vocal range using any syllables (Solfege, numbers, other) that speak to you and feel most natural.
Ear training is a process of internalization.
Internalization is the process of moving the music you are hearing and feeling from the outside of you to the inside of you. Internalization. When you are first training your ears, your voice and mind’s ear may need to follow what you are hearing and playing, but as you internalize the music, a bunch of amazing things start to happen:
- As you mind’s ear becomes the leader; you will actually hear the music inside your head before you play it.
- You will start playing by allowing your mind’s ear (right brain), not your intellect (left brain), to be the leader.
- Abstract music symbols will transformed into the concrete reality of how we all experience music.
- Internalization enables you to play what you’re hearing rather than just hear what you’re playing.
- The Reward: Instead of the piano playing you, you will start playing the piano!
- Note: You’ll know when you’ve internalized a chunk of music because you’ll feel something “click” deep in your musical mind and be able to hear it in your mind’s ear without playing it.
Ear training is about connecting experience and knowledge.
Associate what you are singing to your existing knowledge of music notation, music theory, visuospatial layout of notes on the keyboard, and physical choreography. You’ll know when you’ve internalized a chunk of music because you’ll feel something “click” deep in your musical mind. That “click” is the sensation of the contents of your sensory register and short-term memory being attached to something you already know in your long-term memory.
Ear training is not a race.
For maximum learning, you must listen to or sing each tone long enough for its sound-feeling-function to make a meaningful impression on your mind’s ear. (ref: How Your Brain Works: Soak Time).
If you get stuck, use what you already know.
- It’s ok, for example, to play and sing up or down scale if you’re having a hard time finding a note.
- It’s ok to use a tuning app to visually measure your pitch.
- If you feel like you’re out of tune, try adjusting your pitch up or down as if turning a tuning knob. When you’re in tune, you’ll feel a pleasing resonance “pop”.
- Fight for every note. If something feels off, find and fix the problem immediately. You’ll be glad you did.
- Every bit of progress helps to tune up your musical mind as if YOU are a musical instrument.
The Huge Takeaway: Start singing aloud as you learn new music and enjoy the mind blowing realization that you, not the piano, are the real musical instrument.
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Frank’s Ear Training Recommendations
in no particular order…
Internalize the sound-feelings and Solfege for commonly used scales.
- Mandatory: Major, natural minor, harmonic minor, melodic minor in all 12 Major Keys and Minor Keys.
- Optional: Major pentatonic, minor pentatonic, mixolydian, dorian, blues, and world music scales.
- Learn the scale structure as you read, play, and sing each scale out loud using Solfege, while checking your pitch using a tuning app.
- Don’t overdo this. Do just enough to appreciate the overall mood of each scale type and to internalize how each note in the scale sounds and feels with respect to the key center and to other notes in the scale.
Internalize the sound-feelings of commonly used intervals.
- Unisons & octaves, perfect 5ths & perfect 4ths, major and minor 3rds, major and minor 2nds, major and minor 7ths, tritones, major and minor 6ths.
- Learn the chord structure for each interval as you read, play and sing each note out loud, while checking your pitch using a tuning app.
- Don’t overdo this. Do just enough to get a rough feel for the personality, consonance/dissonance, and stability/instability of each interval.
Caution: It’s a big mistake to use the “first two notes in a song method” to learn intervals. Because any interval can be used in twelve different places and therefore can perform at least twelve different functions, each of which sounds and feels different. (If there’s interest, Frank will produce another lesson to make this point crystal lear.)
Internalize the sound-feelings of commonly used triads.
- Major, Minor, Diminished, Augmented.
- Learn the chord structure for each triad as you read, play and sing each note as an arpeggio out loud, while checking your pitch using a tuning app.
- Don’t overdo this. Do just enough to get a rough feel for the personality, consonance/dissonance, and stability/instability of each chord type.
Internalize the sound-feelings of other chord types.
- Power Chords, Suspended Chords, Major 7th Chords, Minor 7th Chords, Diminished 7th Chords, Half-Diminished 7th Chords.
- Ditto comments for Triads above.
Internalize the sound-feelings commonly used chord progressions.
- Mandatory: Major I-V(7)-I, Minor i-V(7)-i, Major I-IV-I, minor i-iv-i
- Optional: Major I-vi-IV-V, Major IM7-VI7-ii7-V7, Mixolydian I-bVII-I, Dorian i-bVII-i, others.
- Learn how to do Roman Numeral Analys for each chord progression as you read, play and sing the notes in each chord as an arpeggio or voice that moves through the changes.
- Don’t over do this. Do just enough to get a feel for the mood of each chord progression as you internalize the sound, feeling, and function of each chord in the progression with respect to the key center and to each other.
Get your ear training from real music, doing lots of associative ear training.
Once you have a basic understanding of how music works… how scales, chords, and chord progressions sound, feel, and function… and how meter, pitches, harmony, and form work together to create music, your ear training should be incidental to the specific kinds of music that YOU want to make. In other words, you don’t need to do special ear training exercises (just like you don’t need to to special finger training exercises!) In other words, get your ear training directly from the music that YOU want to play!
Analyze the form and melody using Solfege and sing it out loud.
Analyze and internalize the sound feeling, and function of the notes in the melody… recognizing that some notes define the key center, some define the tonality, some outline the harmony, some embellish chord tones, some establish the meter, some create the rhythm, some create harmonic tension, some release harmonic tension… and how all these conspire to create musical phrases and fit into the overall form of the piece.
Analyze the form and harmony using Roman Numeral Analysis (and Solfege)
Analyze and internalize the sound, feeling, and function of each chord in the chord progression… recognizing that some chords define the key center and tonality, some create harmonic tension, some extend harmonic tension, and some change the mood… with a few variations using simple harmonic devices such as pedal points, suspensions, borrowed chords, secondary dominants, key changes… with special attention to how each chord leads to the next and where each chord is placed within the form.
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