{"componentChunkName":"component---src-templates-package-page-js","path":"/packages/331-learn-to-listen-listen-and-learn","result":{"data":{"markdownRemark":{"frontmatter":{"id":331,"title":"Learn To Listen - Listen And Learn","description":"

One of the most important things students and musicians of any level can do to improve their musicianship is work on their ear training skills. Conveniently, this is also one of the easiest things to do, requiring no technical skills.

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I have students who keep hundreds of songs in multiple binders and can’t play a single song without looking at the page with chords over the lyrics that they downloaded from the internet. I know it did not come from Totally Guitars because I do not believe that is a good approach to learning songs. As a matter of fact, it is a terrible way.

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I have seen students open their binder to something like Take It Easy, strum their way through it singing, getting some of the changes in the correct place and most of the words right, and tell me they know that song and don’t need to work on it anymore.

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Then I might ask them to close the binder and tell me some of the chords they played, or what key it is in. The number of times they cannot do this is staggering. Then I might strum through the progression a bit, out of their sight, and ask them to try to figure out the chords. We would start with laying out the measures– how many were there in each phrase, can you lay it out in lines of four measures, when did it come home to the tonic chord, etc.

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Usually, in a few minutes they could strum through the verse or chorus without their ‘music’ and answer the questions that were so elusive just a few minutes before. They will remember how they figured out that song forever and put their binders away.

","heroUrl":"https://storage.totallylessons.com/packages/Screenshot 2026-11-06 at 4.02.05 PM_p6oevh8nx.jpeg","price":2797,"included":"\n \n","video":{"id":20545,"title":"Ear Training Preview I","videoId":"D7olhrC2-eQ","platform":"youtube","url":"https://www.youtube.com/embed/D7olhrC2-eQ","thumbnail":null},"lessons":[{"id":49,"title":"Ear Training For Guitarists - Phase I - Melody","description":"One of the most important skills every musician needs to develop is the ability to listen and recognize all things musical. It seems that some people pick this up naturally but to most of us it can seem very mysterious.
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The goal of this series is to help you improve your ear training capabilities by focusing on individual parts at a time.
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Ear Training really consists of multiple components: picking out melodies, hearing chord changes (harmony), and even sight singing a written melody. This series will eventually address many of these different aspects but we get started with simple melodies in a single key.
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Phase I – C Major Exercises: We start with melodic fragments all taken from a one-octave C scale in first position on the guitar. It would be good to review the scale as well as the chords in a major key as you start this phase.
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These scale exercises will be presented playing through them entirely in the first segment, followed by a second one consisting of each exercise played individually with breaks for the student to try to play what they heard.
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Then each set of exercises will conclude with a “Check It” segment discussing what you hopefully heard. An attachment with each exercise written out is provided, but I recommend doing as much as you can without consulting the answer sheet.
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This phase of the series continues with similar exercises in the key of D Major. The melodies still only use notes from the one-octave D scale in first position but they are a little more diverse than the C Major exercises.
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The Key of E extends our scale to two octaves, giving us a wider range of notes to consider and keep track of. We have arpeggios again, along with some bigger jumps among the scale tones.
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The Exercises in G Major continue with steps, skips, and arpeggios using almost three octaves that are easily accessible on the guitar. There is a wider range of melodic variations in this section built on the earlier sections in C, D, and E.
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We finish up the five common Major keys for guitar with A. This lesson starts with a few scale variations and reviews the chords in the key, then goes into only two Exercises with more harmonic emphasis rather than the melodic exercises in the previous lessons."},{"id":50,"title":"Ear Training For Guitarists - Phase II – Harmony","description":"Hearing chord progressions and chord changes is another vital aspect of ear training. We start this phase off with focusing on the five common guitar keys and listening to progressions using only the primary chords.
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These would be I, IV, and V, with V frequently expanded to being a seventh chord. The first few parts of this section include three progressions played in various keys and rhythms.
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The next three segments of our Harmony Phase in Ear Training start with a look at what we heard with Progression #3. It then continues with some thoughts about hearing the minor chords, and three new progressions incorporating the ii and vi chords of the key.
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We review progressions 4-6 then take a look, or a listen to our last chord in the key, the minor chord iii. Part 10 then continues with a couple progressions using all six primary chords in the key. These are also longer than what we have heard so far, more like verses to songs.\n

Part 11 reviews what we heard in Part 10 and Part 12 starts looking at the primary seventh chords in the major key. This includes three minor sevenths, two major sevenths and the dominant seventh that falls on step five. Part 13 then has examples of recognizable progressions that use some of the sevenths that we are working on hearing and identifying.
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Part 14 goes over what was played in Part 13, then Part 15 enters the world of Secondary Chords. These would be chords outside the key but usually in a nearby key and commonly used by songwriters. We then have another “Listen” segment with more varied and complex progressions.

Wrapping up Phase II of our Ear Training Series we review the progressions we heard in Part 16 and then go through a suggested list of Songs To Know, or at least Progressions To Recognize. The songs start with basic two-chord songs and cover common progressions and bass note patterns. The list of songs is only the tip of the iceberg but it should give you a firm foundation to start with as you improve your listening and recognizing skills."}]},"html":""}},"pageContext":{"id":"e2d95208-7ca0-595b-8c4c-a30c902a3fdb"}},"staticQueryHashes":["4233709985"]}