The Development of the Musical Ear

The normal ear is a receiving instrument that begins hearing sounds at birth. The ear receives music, speech, singing and environmental sounds.

The newborn's first sending instrument is the voice which begins functioning when the first slap on the baby's bottom stimulates or causes its first cry. Using its voice, the child begins to develop its first sending instrument.

One must realize that the normal ear receives naturally. The voice, by imitation of sounds learned from parents, begins to function as a natural instrument by sending what the ear hears. The brain learns to decipher what the ear is hearing so that the voice can begin transmitting what it has heard and assimilated.

As the child grows, his hearing is constantly being bombarded with the music of television, radio, and recordings. The child continues his musical education with musical activities in the early grades, including singing, dancing, and playing instruments. His hearing and voice are tied together enabling the child to learn and sing the lyrics and melodies of numerous songs. When a child has an instrument placed in his hands, he now has a new sending instrument through which he learns to speak musical sounds.

Assuming the child is ten years old, his natural receiving instrument (his hearing) and his natural sending instrument, (his voice) have been synchronized since birth receiving and sending at will. His hearing and the newly held musical instrument in his hands are unsynchronized.

Now begins the long process of catching up to the musically educated hearing. The ears have heard enough music. The student now has to begin practicing in order to play the sounds that he hears in the present and the sounds that have been heard in the past and are now in his memory waiting to be expressed. A student can be frustrated in the attempt to produce these sounds and does not understand why they will not come out of his instrument.

The majority of beginning "ear players" try to play what is in the mind's ear by "fishing around" trying to find the notes to melodies that have been heard before and are familiar. If the student works on learning to read better, the ability to lift the melodies immediately from the written page and the skill to play melodies "by ear" will come sooner. The ability of playing by ear must be learned too; it is more productive to improve one's reading of music first.

Students who read fairly well can learn to play by ear sooner, but sometimes good readers have a tendency to shy away from playing by ear. However, many students who read music well memorize the music being played and are actually playing by ear, but may noit realize it. To sum up, ear players should work on reading as they attempt to play by ear and good readers should begin playing by ear as they go forward with reading study.

Beginning lessons which must include reading musical notation can seem trite and boring compared to the years of musical sounds a student has heard and collected in his mind's ear. The student will spend the rest of his musical life trying to catch up to his mind's ear, because as he is learning his instrument, his ear is continuously receiving and learning more musical sounds. The mind's ear and the musical instrument will probably never be completely synchronized, but after many years of arduous practice, the gap will be lessened considerably.

Practicing chords, scales, modes, fragments, melodies and jazz literature in all twelve keys develops the facility to send out what the ear hears, thus developing the musical instrument as an extension of the musician's body and connecting it more directly with the mind. Consequently, the ear does not need developing, but the mind does, in order to understand and perceive that what the ear is hearing. The student must, therefore, begin to develop the technical ability to produce on the instrument what is heard in the mind's ear.

The studies presented in the "The Polytonal Rhythm Series" prepare the student for each improvisational demand as it arises under actual performance conditions. The Polytonal Rhythm Series is no shortcut, but is a direct path which leads to better sightreading, interpretive reading and jazz improvisational ability. The Polytonal Rhythm Series shows the student how to master the technical skills required of the language of music through five basic approaches:

The memorization and development of a working knowledge of "The Circle of Fifths", the most natural progression in all music;


The use of polytonal order of keys which exposes the student to the twenty-four dialects of music;


The use of rhythmical variations;


The use of tonal variations; and


The recommendation to use the literature to reinforce these concepts.