EAR TRAINING LESSON 1: ‘fixed key learning’

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The fastest way to learn to play music by ear is to restrict your playing to one key, for a sustained period of time. Doing this has two major benefits:

1. Playing in one key removes the visual distractions encountered when you change keys, and allows you to spot the recurring patterns from one song to the next.

2. Playing in one key allows your memory of each note’s sound to build up. The unique sound of the root, 2nd, 3rd, etc can only be learnt when you restrict playing to one key for a period of time.

Most musicians never learn to play by ear simply because they continually play in different keys. They’ll play one song in C major, another in C minor, another in Ab major, and so on. Every time they change key, all the memories of each note’s sound are quickly erased and replaced with new sounds from the new key. C now sounds like the 5th (not the root). D now sounds like the 6th (not the 2nd). And so on.

The simple act of restricting your playing to one key for 4 – 6 months will train your ear faster than any other exercise. Once you’ve learnt to recognize each note’s sound within one key, then you’ll be play in other keys again, and you’ll spot the sounds you’ve learnt in the first key in corresponding locations for all other keys. The root always sounds like the root. The 2nd always sounds like the 2nd. And so on.

The Musical Ear training course is based entirely on this ‘fixed key learning’ concept. I teach you to listen to all music as though it’s in the key of C major / A minor, and to learn to play each song within that key – and not the key of the original.