Which harmonic environments should an improviser learn first?

Student’s question:

Hey David,

Should I study the most important harmonic environments first? Or is it better to study all seven harmonic environments in order?

Thanks,
Karan

David’s response:

Hi Karan,

Each of the seven harmonic environments of the major scale has important musical lessons to teach you, and each one will introduce you to beautiful sounds that you can use in your improvising. But if you’re eager to get a jump on learning to understand songs by ear, you can start with the two harmonic environments which are the most common in popular music:

The 1st harmonic environment (MAJOR). This is where you’ll find the melodies to almost every song you’ve ever heard which sounds like it’s in a “major key” to your ear. We master the first harmonic environment in our video course Ear Training for Musical Creativity 1 and our audio exercises Sing the Numbers 1: The Major Tonality.

The 6th harmonic environment (MINOR). This is where you’ll find the melodies to almost every song you’ve ever heard which sounds like it’s in a “minor key” to your ear. We master the sixth harmonic environment in our video course Ear Training for Musical Creativity 2 and our audio exercises Sing the Numbers 2: The Minor Tonality.

Most popular songs are based in one of these two harmonic environments. For this reason, just mastering these two will enable you to recognize almost all the sounds you’re hearing in the music all around you. I think you can already imagine what an incredible accelerator of your musical learning this will be!

Happy practicing!
David

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