[MUSIC] Hi, my name's Gaye Tolan Hatfield.
I'm a professor in the Ear Training Department, and I've been there for over 25 years.
I'm also a vocalist and a piano player and a writer.
I have written for TV and movies.
You might have heard some of my music in several movies as background music,
also the same thing for TV shows.
I've also done some transcriptions for the Boston pops and to get them ready,
and they're orchestra in their chorus ready for their July 4th, celebrations in Boston.
If you have some knowledge of scale construction, it's very helpful.
How is a major scale formed?
Whole, whole half-step, whole, whole, whole half-step that kind of thing,
and we're going to be building on that when we do our minor scales.
So we've got some theory to look forward to and anything you have in the background,
in your background as far as that goes is all going to be super helpful
when we go through the course.
When I tell folks outside of the music community,
what I do for living, teach ear training, they say "What is that?"
So I put it very simply as being able to hear sound
and write it down on paper, and also being able to look at a piece
of music and sing it out loud without an instrument.
So these are the goals that we have for the end of this course.
We're really working as far as sight reading,
working with the four types of minor scales: jazz melodic,
traditional melodic, natural minor, and harmonic minor.
The same thing, we're going to be working with harmony,
and we're going to try to be able to have you here different types of triads,
diatonic major triads, triads from the minor keys as well as seventh chords.
We're going to be reviewing our conducting techniques.
So conducting is a great way to mark our way through a piece of music.
For instance, if I just tap my foot or tap my hand,
click my fingers, doesn't tell me where I am in the music
but conducting will do that for you.
Also, we're going to work with solfege, do re mi fa sol la ti do
and all the different variations of that as we work with minors scales etc.
We'll look at some rhythm such as cut times, swing, six eight,
and learn how to speak those rhythms,
learn kind of the math behind those rhythms,
so we can be super accurate when faced with those rhythms.
Also, we're going to work with some harmony from triads onto seventh chords,
major harmony, minor key harmony.
So we're going to cover a huge range of topics.
We have quite a lot to work with in this course.
In order to be successful with this course,
it's a good idea for you to be able to match pitch.
So for instance, if I play a note on the piano,
can you sing that note exactly in tune?
You don't have Pavarotti or any other famous opera singer
to be good at using your voice in ear training.
We just need to know that what you're hearing and hear,
you can communicate via your voice.
We'll teach you some tips along the way to help with that,
if you're not used to that kind of thing,
and also, with performing comes the ability to write those things down.
So as we become familiar for forming these things,
we start to have a vocabulary we can call on when we hear them,
and all of a sudden, are able to write them down and express the ideas on paper.
The more you become familiar with these aspects of ear training,
you're going to be able to dictate what you hear or transcribe.
You're going to hear it, and you're going to be able to put it on paper.
No matter what field or music you enter,
ear training is such a benefit, and it's really empowering.
When you start to get it,
it's almost like a secret language that you can speak with other people, other musicians.
What a great way to communicate what you're hearing with
another person without having to stop, write it down.
You can just sing it to them.
Or you can say, "I heard soul on that pitch when you actually played va.
Also, you might be out to a restaurant having dinner,
and you'll find yourself transcribing the music on the intercom system.
[LAUGHTER]. This is what happens when we get
into ear training all of a sudden our ears perk up,
and we can't help ourselves in trying to identify what's going on around us.
[MUSIC].