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If you try to hold a whole piece of music in your head while you learn it by ear, you’re working harder than you need to. In this news-lesson, Hans shows you how to listen with a focus: one question per listen, with a simple graph on paper to hold what you find.

Think of a piece of music you know well and try it as you listen.

The five questions:

1. Does the music move in groups of 2, 3, or 4 beats? (What’s the meter?)
2. How many measures long is it?
3. How many sections or phrases are there?
4. When does each section begin?
5. Which sections are the same, which are different, and which are similar?

See an example graph.

You’ll come away with a clear framework of the piece, ready to fill in with tones and rhythms.

FREE LIVE WEBINAR: Listening and Personal Style Saturday, October 17, 10:00–11:30 AM EDT, on Zoom. Learn how to take a song you love, learn it by ear, and use what you find to learn more music by ear.

SAVE YOUR FREE SPOT

Get the weekly news-lesson by email: https://www.tuneindigolearning.com/newslesson-signup-page

More from Tune Indigo: https://tuneindigo.com https://www.youtube.com/@tuneindigomusic

Chapters

00:00:00 Welcome: pick a piece of music

00:00:25 Free webinar, October 17

00:01:07 One song opens the next

00:02:18 Your memory is busy

00:03:20 Listen with a focus

00:05:56 What meter is the music in?

00:06:20 How long is it?

00:06:56 How many sections are there?

00:07:12 When does each section begin?

00:07:30 Same, different, or similar?

00:08:30 Learn the rest of the framework

READ the Transcript

Hey! I'd love to hear your thoughts, send me a voice note.

You do well on your ear training drills, but when you set out to learn real music by ear, you get stuck partway in. The skills are in place. What's missing is an order in which to put them to use.

In this episode I lay out the steps I use with my ear training students, from far away, and then we take the first one: the open listen.

In this episode:

• Where students get stuck when learning music by ear
• Open listens: let the music affect you before anything else
• Focus listens, one element at a time: form, then time, then pitch
• Listening for contour, listening for "do", and singing it back in solfège
• Making an assertion before each listen
• Using your eyes, voice, body and imagination
• Letting the music in instead of grabbing at it

Practice for this week: choose a piece you're learning by ear, or one you'd like to learn. Listen to it once, start to finish, with no task in mind. Afterward, name one moment that affected you. That's your first landmark.

Read this news-lesson: [NEWS-LESSON LINK]

Free live webinar, Saturday, October 17, 10:00–11:30 a.m. EDT. Bring a song you love, and we walk through the Holistic Ear Training process together. Save your spot.

Get the news-lesson by email each week:

https://www.tuneindigolearning.com/newslesson-signup-page

READ TODAY'S EPISODE.

Watch the video lessons on YouTube (next Saturday's video walks through every step on a short piece: https://www.youtube.com/@tuneindigomusic

More from Tune Indigo: https://tuneindigo.com

Hey! I'd love to hear your thoughts, send me a voice note.

Struggling to learn melodies by ear? You might be trying to hold too much at once. In this news-lesson, I share the one change that helps my students most: listening with a focus. That means choosing a single feature to listen for, like the highest tone, the sound of "do," or when an instrument drops out, and letting the rest of the music wash over you.

You'll learn:

• Why straining to catch everything at once makes learning by ear harder
• How to "guess, then check" to give your attention something to hang onto
• Why form (what's the same, similar and different) is the most useful focus of all
• A quick form exercise with "Ode to Joy"

🎙️ Free live webinar: Listening and Personal Style Saturday, October 17, 10:00–11:30 AM EDT. Bring a song you love, and we'll walk through the Holistic Ear Training process together on music that matters to you.

Save your free spot: https://www.tuneindigolearning.com/quick-webinar-registration

Also mentioned:

• This week's video, "There's No Shortcut to a Great Ear"
• Tone Hole for iPhone (free levels 127–129)
• This episode for your eyes (It's a news-lesson.)
• Get the weekly news-lesson by email.