Thanks all for the great conversation, and a special thanks to @mem for starting it. Since @DavidW invited me to comment, I’ll chime in with one quick observation. First, I think the conversation is fantastic, and I share everyone’s dissatisfaction with the horrible expression “ear training”. This doesn’t even come close to describing what we’re doing in IFR. Honestly, for me all we’re doing is “studying music”. I can’t imagine any sensible way of studying music that doesn’t involve actually listening to the sounds, so the mere fact that we even need a special term called “ear training” shows how far mainstream music education has strayed from the path of genuine learning. Can you imagine having to take a course called “eye training” as part of your painting degree, because in most of your classes you don’t even bother to look at what you’re painting?
So not only is Marie-Elaine’s definition of her goal a major step forward, but it’s also (I think) an essential ingredient in any genuine musical learning. Just like in any art form, all we’re trying to do in IFR is to see our raw materials clearly, get to know them personally, and discover our own way of expressing ourselves with them. Recognizing melody notes by ear is obviously inseparable from this ambition.
But what might not be obvious is how much of the IFR practice is centered on developing this ability. Even the “resolution” method that @freddy described beautifully is ALREADY omnipresent in every “Sing the Numbers” track from the first to the last. Those are not random melodies. Every single melody in that audio course was chosen both for its relevance as an ear training foothold and also for its instructional value as a composing lesson. And just as @freddy has observed, hearing the notes being used for a musical purpose (even if it’s just a simple tension/resolution statement like the melodies from that ear training app) makes it SO much easier to latch on to the meaning of each sound! Imagine how difficult it would be to recognize the words you’ve studied in a foreign language if those words were repeated back to you in random, nonsensical order! Hearing the sounds in a musical context is essential both to understanding them and also to recognizing them.
And the other essential part of this learning process is to explore the sounds creatively in your own improvising practice. So at the risk of sounding like a broken record, really all you need to do is spend a little bit of time each day practicing the IFR program as designed, in addition to all of your other musical activities which you are free to choose and enjoy to your heart’s content.
It’s so important to keep this in mind because all of the other mental states that Marie-Elaine describes are perfectly natural. When I’m improvising on the trumpet, my mind is also moving in a very fluid way between tonal numbers, absolute note names, chord names and symbols, etc. All of this is fine! Studying a map of your neighborhood doesn’t preclude you from noticing the sign posts and the landscape details when you’re actually walking around your neighborhood. So the last thing we want to encourage in IFR is a fear of having the “wrong” thoughts when you’re playing. It’s enough to just keep coming back to your IFR practice for a few minutes a day in order to cultivate enough of the “right” thoughts, meaning an awareness of where you are in the overall key of the music. As long as you’re doing a little bit of that work each day (maybe singing the tonal numbers out loud to force yourself to stay conscious of them), then I can promise you from my experience with literally hundreds of private students that your mastery of the harmonic landscape WILL grow, and that every other perspective you find yourself noticing is ALSO positive, and ultimately all part of a single reality.
Also, please don’t take any of the above as a dismissal or criticism of other ways of thinking about harmony that may be entirely different. I don’t want to have the “last word” on any of these issues. I just wanted to clarify what we might call the “IFR philosophy” so that you can put it in context and decide whether it can serve you or not. And really, the only important point I want to make about that is just to share the tip that just doing Sing the Numbers and (for example) IFR Jam Tracks Level 2: Pure Harmony Essentials every day in a different key on your instrument will make it virtually impossible NOT to master the skill Marie-Elaine has so succinctly described.
It still doesn’t happen all the time, but it’s given me a new level to aim for.
