I started this site as a way to track my progress on ear training studies. On April 7, 2008 I began studying various courses in an effort to teach myself perfect pitch. Back in the early 90s I bought the Perfect Pitch Training Course by David Lucas Burge. While I found it very interesting I was not willing to put in the time and effort that it takes. Another hurdle I faced back then was that I didn’t even know what notes made up an A Major Chord or an Eb Minor Chord. This time around I decided “what the hell”. I’ll try to learn everything about this stuff and see if it improves my guitar playing.

It definitely has improved my playing and my listening. Prior to this training it was difficult for me to figure things out by ear. I always relied on tablature or sheet music. Nowadays, I think it’s fun to hear something on the radio and then go home and try to play it on guitar.

I primarily studied perfect pitch for about 12 months and now I’m listening to the Burge Relative Pitch Training Course. This course is intimidating. I think there are about 40 or 50 CDs that come with it and it’s very obvious that David Lucas Burge is the only “real” master of ear training. All other courses fall short.  Anyone who tells you that it’s easy to learn all of this material in 6 weeks is crazy. In fact, it’s so much material that I would guess most people would give up. I think that’s why many people think that ear training is a waste of money. They buy a course for $300 and then they realize that it takes practice. I would say that ear training is along the lines of learning to play guitar. I don’t think about it anymore, but in the beginning I had to learn how to hold the guitar, how not to drop the pick, how to press my fingers down on the frets, how to coordinate the rhythm of both hands, etc. This is what ear training is like. You have to learn chord and interval spellings, how to recognize things by ear, the differences between chords when you hear them, etc. It’s a huge undertaking and I guessed it would be. Otherwise, everyone would go around saying, “check me out, I have perfect pitch”.

I was going to put 1 year of training into ear training and then quit. But, now I’m beginning year 2 and I’m still doing it. All in all I think it’s fun. Plus, I really want to see if it’s possible to train myself perfect and relative pitch.

Cheers!

Troy