EXCERPT 1

This book presents a focus exercise to improve your recognition of pitches and your ability to quickly know the pitches you are hearing in your head when you improvise or compose.  If you have already worked with the Fanatic's Guide to Sight Singing and Ear Training then you can skip the theory section and FAQs.  As previously mentioned this book is highly targeted and is geared towards master-ing one important fi rst step in developing good aural recognition.  This "One Note" exercise is very demanding and can seem overwhelming, but one must work many years to develop a truly accurate ear, and the work in this book is part of a long term process.    It is impossible to know the ability of every student that comes in contact with this book, but I believe all but the exceptionally gifted will fi nd the contents quite challenging.  The "One Note" exercise took me years to master, but the results were well worth every minute.   I'm sure you will fi nd working through on this exercise to be equally rewarding. For those students who have diffi culty organizing a practice regimen the "member's section" of the muse-eek.com website is additionally helpful.  It con-tains free downloadable lesson plans to help organize a productive work schedule.   Don't be surprised if you are working with one exercise for months, even years.  These exercises are highly specialized and go right to the heart of your ear training problems.  It's wonderfully rewarding to see these problems eventually fade away, but it can also be very frustrating to work on the same exercise for a long period of time and not improve as quickly as you would like.  If you are hav-ing problems with some of these exercises don't assume that there is something wrong with you.  Just have faith and keep going.