I have always had a terrible ear and I feel that it's preventing me from making the most of your method. There seem to be just two sorts of musicians: the ones who can play by ear and the ones who just can't. Can you help me?
This is a practice video for Improvise for Real students who want to understand and internalize the chord progression 1, 6-, 2-, 5D. First, we will understand the role of each chord in the progression, and then we will practice ear training with the Melody Paths exercise.
In this video you'll learn the most important technique for recognizing songs and melodies by ear. The technique is to focus on the path that the melody traces through the overall key of the music.
In this video we will sing Melody Paths together across the chord progression 6-, 5D, 4, 3-. This progression goes down in scale degrees, using only natural chords from the major scale, so we are not introducing any notes or chords from outside the key.
To recognize chords by ear, is it helpful to listen to one particular instrument or should we be listening for something else?
This listening activity will help you learn to recognize chord progressions by ear. We have put together a list of beautiful popular songs that use the exact same chords that you're studying in IFR Jam Tracks Levels 2 and 3.
In this video demonstration with tenor sax and piano, we demonstrate how IFR students are able to instantly find the key of the music by ear.
In this video I demonstrate why tonal ear training is so much more powerful than listening for intervals, especially over long or complex chord progressions.
Sometimes I have to listen to a chord progression between 5-10 times before I can recognize the chords. Is this normal? Or should I be able to do this instantly?
If I identify a particular note as the tonal center of a song, how can I tell which note of the major scale it is (e.g. note 4)?