Any mainstream American pop tune, Beethoven symphony, or British children’s song shares a common thread: Western harmonies. Why does Western culture center on specific chords? What is the link between memory, harmony, and ear training? Does music improve memory?

Growing up in Western culture, your ear and brain absorbed a specific “musical hierarchy” where the tonic of a scale had more importance than other pitches.[1] For example, in D Major, your ear automatically gravitates towards the pitches D, A, and G, and finds notes like C# dissonant. Even as an infant, you demonstrated a clear preference for specific Western harmonies. [2] Why is this?

Since childhood, the music you listened to impressed upon your long term memory a distinct preference for the tonic (D) and the dominant (A). Musical training affected your perception of music and your ability to recognize pitch. [1] The more musical exposure you experienced, the greater the impact on your brain and memory.

To recognize a pitch during ear training, your brain performs mental gymnastics. Click to read the rest…

Last week we held the launch party for EasyEarTraining.com at the Union Chapel in London. It was a great opportunity to gather a great mix of music lovers from all kinds of backgrounds, each with their own take on developing their ears, to discuss and try out different approaches to ear training.

This is the second part of our recap – click here to read part one if you missed it, and make sure you come back later this week to check out video footage of the evening’s events!

Apart from the RelativePitch, frequency training, and Wii Music demos, we had a couple of laptops set up for people to check out the site, the forums, and our ‘Intro to Ear Training’ Quiz. Click to read the rest…