Fifty-two weeks. All audio. No screens, no written assignments. Forty minutes at a time, with rain and birdsong underneath so you can hold your attention on the sound instead of a page.
The Composing Hour builds the inner ear. Flawless Ear Training builds the ear that can take what you hear apart and write it down. One question tells you which you need: can you dictate what you hear? If yes, you may not need more ear training. If not, that's the gap Flawless fills. Either one stands on its own. If you're doing both, get into the rhythm of Flawless for about a month before adding this on top.
"I took musicianship courses with Kevin when I was back in college, and I have seen so much growth in my music theory and ear training skills. Kevin's courses have taught me how to sight-read music, and to analyze musical scores effectively. I enjoyed taking Kevin's courses because Kevin taught me what I needed to know to become successful with my craft. By taking Kevin's courses, it has allowed me to not only go out and perform, but also provide private instruction to students of all ages. If you want to strengthen your musicianship skills, you should try Kevin's musicianship courses. You will notice a big difference in your musicianship skills.”
Former University Student
Where it came from
When I was an undergraduate, I found Schoenberg's Theory of Harmony and worked through it the way he laid it out. Every chord progression, every step, in every key. Somewhere in the middle of that I started to hear what I was writing. My ear wasn't good enough to hear it correctly, but I was hearing something, and my senior recital came together fast because most of it was already in my head.
Then it went away. Graduate school meant producing every week, and a skill that isn't practiced methodically doesn't stay. Nobody warned me about that part. It's the reason this course exists.
I've taught composition and ear training for more than twenty-five years, eight of them as a university professor. The students who struggled weren't short on theory. Nobody had taught them to listen with the inner ear, to audiate, and written drills didn't fix it. This is what I built instead: a year of inner ear training, one week at a time, with nothing to read.
Musicians who want to hear music before they play it
Composers who want to hear the page before they play it
Performers who read well and want to improvise
Anyone who did years of ear training and still can't hold a melody in their head after the sound stops
Musicians who want a course they can do with their eyes closed: no screen, nothing to write, nothing to download but the audio
Anyone willing to do the same small thing every week for a year and let the inner ear grow at its own pace
You don't need theory to start. You don't need an instrument in the room. You need forty minutes, headphones or a quiet space, and the patience to begin with two notes.
Two things it isn't. It isn't perfect pitch training, so if you want to name any note instantly without a reference, that's a different skill. And it isn't quick. It runs a year and gets harder as it goes. If you can't imagine sound at all, email me before you buy and I'll tell you what I know.
Most weeks have three files. An introduction where I explain what we're doing and why, a forty-minute session, and a seven-minute drill. The forty-minute session is the work. The seven-minute drill is for days you can't spare the hour, or for right before bed, so your brain has something to file while you sleep.
Three sessions a week is the dose I recommend. Once a week still moves you, just slower. You're taking the boat instead of the plane.
I give an instruction and then I go quiet. The silence is the exercise. You're holding the note, the interval, or the phrase on your own, in as much detail as you can manage. If you catch yourself wondering whether I left, I didn't.
There's rain and birdsong under all of it. That's deliberate, and I explain why in the first file. Part of it is calm. Part of it is that you have to focus through it.
Audiation is the subject, so listening is the method
Audiation is Edwin Gordon's word for hearing music in your mind when no sound is present. Not remembering a recording. Hearing the pitch, the harmony, and the rhythm in enough detail that you could write it down or play it. That's the whole subject of Year 1, and it's the skill most ear training never touches.
A page gives your eyes something to do and lets your inner ear off the hook. Take the page away and the only place the music can exist is in your head.
It's also why Year 1 starts with two notes, C and E flat, and stays there for weeks. If I don't build from something that small, I can't teach a course for everybody that runs on a recording alone. Unless you have perfect pitch, you need those weeks. If you do have perfect pitch, you've probably never listened this way. Not many people have.
No screens. No books to download. No written assignments. Press play, close your eyes if you can, and listen. Then listen again internally, with the sound gone.
This is not a fixed set of recordings. Lessons are shaped by what students actually report back, and the course keeps improving as they do. What you find hard this month can change what next month's lesson covers.
Where fifty-two weeks of inner ear training takes you
Weeks 1 to 10: two notes. C and E flat, the gap between them, and what silence sounds like once a pitch has colored it. Then intervals, hidden tones, and the difference between reacting to a sound and anticipating it. B flat joins by Week 10.
Weeks 11 to 27: pitches across octaves, clusters, and a second line. You hold a drone in your head while a melody moves over it. Then you memorize short blocks of pitches, scramble them, chain them, and by Week 27 you can call up seven of them from a single C.
Weeks 28 to 37: timbre. The same material in strings, woodwinds, brass, and percussion, until you hear the instrument and not just the note.
Weeks 38 to 47: the Triangle. An identity line, a drone, and a pulse, all running at once. You learn to rotate which one sits in front, change the texture, and shape a line while the other two hold.
Weeks 48 to 52: four layers. You add a phrase of your own above the Triangle, give each layer its own expressive identity, and perform the whole thing in your head. That's the Year 1 promise. Music you can hear before it exists.
Every lesson is a recording. The instructions, the examples, and the exercise itself all come by ear. Download the files and keep them.
I give an instruction and go quiet. That silence is the exercise: you're listening internally, holding the sound in your inner ear after the piano stops. Once you think you're hearing the note in full detail, go deeper. There's always more.
Week 1 is two notes. That's deliberate. Light weight and good form before anything heavy. Each week adds one thing to what you already hold, and by Week 52 the load is bigger than you'd believe if I told you now.
Each year is a separate membership
Year 1 is audiation: one line, then two, in your head. Year 2 is counterpoint, three and four lines. Year 3 is form, and by then your ear should be strong enough that I can explain it without you ever looking at a score. This page is Year 1.
A professional music school without the high fees
One payment or monthly. Both prices are on this page. A year of instruction for less than a single semester at most music schools. The first fifteen days are free, and if you cancel before they're up you pay nothing.
* Year 2 is open now, one session every two weeks. Year 3 is still being built.
Hearing music where it lives, in your own head. Internal sound memory first, then internal hearing you can control. You start with two notes and end with four layers running at once. Everything else in the series stands on this year.
Two lines, then three and four, moving against each other. The stability you built in Year 1 is what lets you hold both without losing either. Separate membership.
How phrases relate, how ideas return, and how a small motive grows into a whole movement. With two years of hearing behind you, I can teach it by ear. Separate membership.
A full year, one week at a time. Download every lesson and keep it.
No written assignments, no slides, nothing to read. Headphones and forty minutes.
When a week didn't land for the people taking it, I re-recorded it. The update dates are in the file list.
Twenty-five years teaching composition and ear training, eight of them as a university professor. Every lesson is my voice, recorded and edited by me. Post a comment on any lesson or email me. I answer.
What students report back shapes what comes next. A week that's hard for everyone gets another pass.
Every session runs over natural sound. It settles you, and you have to focus through it. Both are the point.
Year 1 audiation. Year 2 counterpoint. Year 3 form. Each year is its own membership.
Five stretches of inner ear training. Every file is downloadable audio.
C and E flat. Centering on a single tone, the gap between two, then intervals, hidden tones, and hearing that anticipates instead of reacts. B flat arrives by Week 10.
The same pitches stretched across octaves, then clusters with C sharp and F sharp. Week 17 adds a drone you hold in your head while the melody moves over it. Week 20 is your first variation of a phrase.
Two lines at once, then the A blocks: seven short pitch groups you memorize until you can call them up out of order from a single C. Week 27 is a reflection session. From Week 28 the blocks move through strings, woodwinds, brass, and percussion.
A two-note cantus firmus in each instrument family, with your own lines above and between it. Then a melody held against a drone, the drone moved to a fourth, and your first tries at a second voice of your own.
The Triangle: an identity line, a drone, and a pulse, all at once. TUNE and TUNED, the routines for controlling texture and foreground. Then a phrase of your own on top, four layers, and a final performance entirely in your head.
Before you buy
Composers who can write on paper but can't hear the page before they play it. Performers who read well and can't improvise a bar. Anyone who did years of ear training and still can't hold a melody in their head after the sound stops.
You don't need theory to start. You need forty minutes, a quiet space or headphones, and the willingness to do the same small thing until it changes.
Audiation is hearing music in your mind. It's the core skill behind real musicianship, and it's what lets you make music from the inside out. Year 1 builds it through listening exercises, one at a time, over 52 weeks.
Most weeks have three files: an introduction, a forty-minute session, and a seven-minute drill. All of it is audio you can download. Three sessions a week is the dose I recommend. Once gets you through. If you're also doing Flawless Ear Training, run the two side by side.
Year 1 is fifty-two weeks. Year 2 (counterpoint) and Year 3 (form) are separate memberships, and nobody has to sign up for all three.
Yes. We start by strengthening your ability to listen and imagine, not by throwing terminology at you. The harder ideas come later, once your ear is ready for them.
The order is fixed. Two notes come before three, and one line comes before two. What changes is the detail. When a week doesn't land for students, I re-record it, and the file list shows the dates.
Yes. Download every file and keep it. Most weeks are built to be repeated across several days anyway.
All you need is a device that plays audio, a smartphone, computer or tablet, and an hour where you won't be disturbed. Ideally more than one of those in a week.
You build a strong internal sound memory, and that changes how you perform, improvise, and compose. You stop guessing at what comes next. You hear it first, then play it.
Start the free trial on this page. You get fifteen days before anything is charged. Week 1 is three short files, and the first one explains why the whole year is built the way it is.
Year 2 and Year 3 are separate memberships. Year 2, counterpoint, is open now. Year 3 is still being built. Nobody's asking you to commit to three years. Don't take my word for any of this. Start the trial and run Week 1.
Every lesson and exercise comes through audio. There are no visuals and no written materials. It's spoken instruction, ear training, and guided listening, working toward deep audiation and real command of counterpoint (invertible counterpoint, canon, invention, and fugue) and form.
• Start with a brief guided meditation to settle your mind and tune in to a sustained tone.
• Simply listen to the tone, absorbing its color and quality.
• Outcome: Begin building your internal sound memory.