Hearing Singing Minor Keys

Hearing Singing Minor Keys

Q: Dear Bruce, I keeping practicing over your material and I can already see great improvement, I find some tracks on the Dorian Direct Application CD to be harder than others. This is especially true with the A Dorian and E Dorian. Have you got some advice about it?
All the best

A: Nice to hear from you. For most students once key centers are introduced that are not a simple Major chord problems develop. I would get the Fanatic’s Guide to Ear Training and Sight Singing Volume 1 and sing through the various melodies starting on page 16. I would also sing through the Blues exercise on page 17. That will take awhile because there are many alterations. I would also take the MP3 of various key center types from Fanatic’s Guide to Ear Training and Sight Singing Volume 2 and sing through those same melodies found in Volume One. There are also things to sing in Volume two. “Singing the Blues” course would be good to work on. The four levels of “Key Note Recognition” will also be good because the key centers get more and more complicated. “Scale Analysis” course will be great help too. Singing through the scales for each chord progression will really help you expand your aural skills with alternate key center types.

Overall most students go through this problem where their ability to hear contextually is very weak when they use a minor, dominant or other types of key centers. Usually if you work on these along with the Direct Application CDs these problems go away after a few months.

Let me know if you have further questions.

It is also recommended that you read Bruce Arnold’s Blog at his artist site. It contains more discussion of the musical topics found in these FAQs as well as other subjects of interest. You will also find the “Music Education Genealogy Chart” located here which shows you the historic significance of the music education products found on the Muse Eek Publishing Company Website.

Hearing Singing Minor Keys