Unit 2
Unit 1 had you sing letter names. Unit 2 takes them away.
Every lesson, I play a starting note. That note is zero. A whole step up is two. A perfect fourth is five. A perfect fifth is seven. You sing the numbers. Four numbers, and we take them through every key.
The dictations are gone, so each lesson runs about fifteen minutes. In their place, the chromatic scale. One note per lesson, twelve lessons, C up to B. Audiate it. Sing it. Then the mirror exercise: I play a pattern, you sing it back, then you think it in time. There's no gap to plan in.
You don't need a good voice. You don't even need to sing in tune. You need to hit the interval. If a key is out of your range, audiate it and think the numbers.
You'll hear rain under most of the tracks. That's deliberate. A small distraction pushes you further into the sound.
The arc
Lessons 1 to 12 take one note each, C up to B. The drills don't change. Chromatic scale, mirror, a fifth or a fourth above and below by letter name, fourth or fifth, one four five in the key, then the numbers. Same shape every day, so the note is the only thing that's new.
Lessons 13 to 15 stack them. Two notes, then three, then four. You say change when the pitch class moves, and you don't say it when I jump octaves. I modulate underneath you while you do it. It's subtle enough that you may not catch it the first time.
Then the final exam. One drill, interval identification, and the score is 100 percent. Miss one and you're done for the day. Come back tomorrow. Part two puts a drone under the interval and asks you to hear past it.
Before you buy
It won't teach you a new interval. Still the fourth and the fifth, with the whole step added. If the fifth isn't solid from Unit 1, go back. Nothing here works without it.
It won't let you stay on a lesson. One lesson a day. Three days at most, then move on, whatever the score. What you're missing gets fixed later in the course, not by repeating.
It isn't the video course. The video sessions run longer and go deeper. These run fifteen minutes, so the bar is higher: 100 percent, or miss one, before you move on.
There's a Tips and Help file at the end. Open it when you're stuck, and not before.
I have been studying music since I was four, and I have trained with some of the best. I have attended a handful of different universities and attended multiple different music camps in my pursuit of becoming the best musician I can be.
Recently I had one of my guitar instructors (Grant Gordy) tell me that my technique is great but the only way forward for me to advance to the next level (pro level) of musicianship is for me to really work on my ear. That was six months ago.
I have taken Kevin's course seriously since the first pre-course lessons. My hard work is starting to pay off.
I want to develop a pro-level ear more than anything. I am starting to see that if I continue with Kevin's course, I just might achieve my goal!
Fellow musicians and fans have already started to take notice.
Hi Kevin, thank you so much for doing this project. Please keep doing what you are doing. You make the impossible becomes possible. I never thought I could do the Pitch Breakdown, Interval or Chord exercises. Up to this lesson, my ears can tell with confidence. I am listening to a major triad or a perfect fifth. The Pitch Breakdown becomes straightforward. I am still struggling with memorizing the six measures of pitch notation. However, this will improve with practice. Once again, massive thanks!
It’s working! I can now hear both notes in the intervals. Bass clef is still a bit of a challenge to my ear, but it is getting better. Thanks!
Thanks for the advice, and the course. It really works! I've started ear training a few weeks ago and, after having done introductory lessons A, B, and C, today I finally managed 100% in the chord vs interval recognition exercise of Lesson 1, while about one week ago I thought I would never make it.
I think we should make a Nobel Prize for music and give it to you, your channel is really special with a lot of knowledge that I didn't find anywhere else... Thank you
Thanks again Kevin for keeping this going. The more I dive into your lessons, the more certain I feel that you are creating something unique in the world that very much needs to exist. I am a trained musician, so these lessons are all very simple for me at this point, and probably will be for several months. However, I feel that I'm learning to listen more deeply into the individual pitches and intervals, like probing down to the vibrational cycles themselves. I can only imagine your composition course is equally as powerful if you are using this same incremental approach. I'll be sure to check that out soon!
Download the resources you'll need for the course.