Master Ear Training

The foundation of most music is melody. That’s why we start by recognizing and perceiving melodies and their individual tones. Traditional ear training approaches often begin with identifying intervals. But that’s a bit like learning to read by first memorizing isolated letters—only after recognizing all individual letters in random combinations would one move on to reading actual words.

I deliberately said “recognizing letters” and not “reading”. Reading means seeing a word and immediately grasping its meaning. The same applies to melodies. They are not just a series of stacked intervals but rather musical units. Moreover, in tonal music, tones always relate to a tonal center—and that is the key aspect. The melodic appeal and meaning of a musical line are determined by the relationship of its tones to this center. This method is based on that principle: we will learn how each tone feels and sounds in relation to a tonal center.

The same applies to chords. Of course, one can identify a chord in isolation, for example, as a major or minor chord. But chords do not exist in isolation in the musical world. They also stand in a tension-filled relationship with a tonal center. Once you can perceive and hear this tension, you will be able to recognize chord progressions effortlessly.