Student’s question:
I’m studying the first harmonic environment. I use the jam tracks to improvise on and to explore the sounds. I always start by signing what I think is note 1 and then check on my piano to see if I’m right. Often, I confuse note 5 for note 1. Is this a common mistake?
Some ideas to think about:
Yes! Not only is this a common mistake, but it’s actually an important step forward in your learning. Your ear is working perfectly. The reason why you’re getting confused between these two sounds is because they really ARE very similar! After the tonal center (note 1), note 5 is the most consonant note in the entire octave. It’s the other important resting place in the octave, and it feels very similar to resting on note 1. So it’s perfectly normal that you would confuse these two sounds at first, and it’s just an invitation to take your focus down to the next level of granularity.
One of the clearest differences between these two sounds is how they relate to their neighbors in the scale. One of the ways you can test whether the note you’re singing is note 1 or note 5 is to try singing a few other notes of the scale, just to kind of confirm where you think you are in the key. Especially if you try moving down by one scale degree, you might be able to notice whether the next lower scale degree is a half step down (meaning that your starting note must have been note 1) or a whole step down (meaning that your starting note must have been note 5).
Another difference between these two sounds is their relationship to each other. For example, whenever you’re on note 5, you should always be able to springboard up a perfect fourth and land on another equally consonant sound which will be note 1. For reference, this is exactly the melody of the first two notes of “Amazing Grace”. On the first two syllables “A – maz”, the melody notes are 5 and 1. So whenever your voice is resting on note 5, you should always be able to sing the first two melody notes to “Amazing Grace”, and it should feel right to your ear because you’ll be singing the note 5 and 1. By contrast, if you were actually on note 1, then singing this same melody will now take you up to note 4. This can still sound “right” in a certain sense, but the melody is going to deliver you to a very unresolved place. So this can help you get your orientation in the octave.
But the main point I want to make is that what you’re experiencing is not a sign of any problem with your ear. It’s actually a wonderful sign that your ear is working perfectly. You’re sometimes getting tricked because these two sounds really are so similar, so this observation allows you to take your study of these sounds to the next level of depth and granularity. Now you can start to ask the question of what truly distinguishes the root from the fifth, in terms of your own experience of these sounds.
But remember also that momentary misunderstandings are an inseparable part of the human experience. No matter how much mastery you gain with ear training, there will always be moments when you sing a fifth thinking it’s the root. Mastery doesn’t imply that we can never be tricked. It just means that we have the resources to discover our mistake quickly, we can understand why we were deceived, and we can then adjust our vision of the notes so that we’re seeing everything in its proper place.
