Ear Training LV 1
Hello Dave,
First of all, I would like to thank you for sharing your talent and passion for teaching harmonica! I have been noodling around at level three for several months, working on bending, and I've had time to work on the other material at this level. I am feeling stuck on the ear training, I can hear the changes and can usually figure out where the I is, but when I try to play the scale on my C harp, I'm not hearing which note matches consistently. I can hit a bent note with correct intonation when I hear it, so my ears are hearing pitch, but I'm struggling to hear which note matches the key of the song(sometimes I can pick out a couple, but just as often I'll be completely wrong). Do you have any further suggestions for working on this skill? At this point I'm listening to songs and jam tracks where the key is published, trying to figure it out by playing a scale without knowing the key, then listening again and playing the scale again when I know the key.
Thank you Tracy, I'm glad that you're enjoying your studies.
Figuring out the key is a process over time... you will get better at it as your ear continues to get better. The challenge is that all the notes in the scale match... that's why they're in the scale/key... so our challenge is to pick the best matching note.
Keep in mind that using the C harmonica is just one method... experiment with the other methods and see what works best for you.
With all this in mind, something you can do now, if you want to add another learning path, is to use an ear training program. One that has worked well for some students is the Perfect Ear app. It's also good for rhythm training.