IFR blog > Practice tips > Developing your ear > Understanding any piece of music by ear
IFR video lesson : Adjacent chords

For IFR students practicing Exercise 3: Pure Harmony, this video lesson demonstrates a great way to accelerate your mastery of all seven chords. By studying these chords in adjacent pairs, we can learn to visualize all of these sounds in the tonal octave much faster.

Applying IFR to the banjo

I play the five string banjo with open G tuning. Yesterday I bought the IFR method book and I see that guitar and bass players use a special version of Exercise 1. Is there a special version of Exercise 1 for banjo?

Why nursery rhymes are great ear training for improvisers

I'm currently singing and playing short tunes like nursery rhymes, hymns, etc. The way I do it is that I will play a tune only once and try to make my best attempt at playing the correct notes the very first time. Is this approach a good one?

How to practice difficult movements in Exercise 1

I'm wondering about the trombone? The image you use of the notes being connected as one long chain doesn’t really fit with the trombone because the notes are not evenly spaced. Do you have any suggestions?

Ear training with All of Me

This is a practice video for Improvise for Real students who are studying the song ‘All of Me’ from IFR Standards Workout 1. In this video we will practice the IFR ear training exercise Melody Paths over the first two lines of the song.

Yesterday

The Beatles song "Yesterday" uses just two chords from outside the major scale. These two chords give the song its exotic touches making the melody so much more beautiful and memorable.

Wild Horses

The chord progression to this ballad by the Rolling Stones contains two fascinating sounds that are worth studying.

Rocket Man

Elton John was a master of the most subtle details of Mixed Harmony.

Like a Rolling Stone

When you think of the bluesy rock sound of this Bob Dylan classic, it's hard to imagine that the entire song is made from just the seven notes of the major scale.

Knockin' on Heaven's Door

Bob Dylan's beautiful ballad uses the "backwards" movement through chords 1, 5D and 2-.