EXCERPT 1

How to Use this Book: For Beginners

There are many methods of ear training available to the serious music student. I call the method used here "relative pitch ear training," but it is not based on interval training or on memorizing melodies to be regurgitated back at the instructor. What makes this ear training different is that a student memorizes the sound of all 12 pitches against a key center. There are steps and exercises required to reach this first plateau. Each of the 12 pitches we use in western music has a distinctive sound when heard against an established key center. If we were to play a I- IV- V- I progression in the key of "C" a few times over this would establish a key center in the listener's mind. If we then play one of the 12 available pitches this note would have a distinctive sound against that key. For instance, if we play an "F" note it has a unique and particular sound. Now, this is not because it is a fourth interval above the tonic, it is because it has the specific sound of the fourth degree. We shouldn't derive the answer by singing out loud up the scale or thinking up from the tonic in our mind. And lastly and most importantly we shouldn't think or sing "Here Comes the Bride" to get to that fourth interval. These common tricks are taught in many schools and while they may work to get a student through a test to pass a course, they don't train a student's ear to hear what pitches are going by when music is played in time.