In this introductory video, J. Anthony Allen outlines a six‑part ear‑training series designed to develop professional‑level aural skills. The first part concentrates on rhythm dictation—learning to hear rhythms and transcribe them accurately. Allen explains the course structure (rhythms, intervals, melodies, chord progressions, chromatic intervals, chromatic melodies), emphasizes that the skills rely on relative pitch rather than perfect pitch, and stresses the necessity of daily, focused practice. He promises practical tools, listening strategies, and exercises, and guides viewers on how to find additional practice material, positioning the series as a comprehensive pathway to rapid aural comprehension for musicians.
Chapters
Hey, everyone. Welcome to Ear Training and oral Skills, Part 1. In this class, we're going to focus on ear training when it comes to rhythms. This is going to be a six part class. We're going to work through rhythms, then intervals, then melodies, then chord progressions, chromatic intervals, chromatic melodies. So what we're doing here is focusing on the skill that all professional musicians have and that you can develop with some practice. This is the skill to be able to hear something and then just play it, or to hear something and then be able to write it down. In this first class, we're going to focus primarily on that writing it down part and start to build that skill that we call dictation, so that when we get to full melodies and chord progressions and everything, you have all the tools you need to be able to just hear those things and figure them out in a flash. Now, I want to be super upfront with you here. This is not a class where you're going to watch me talk for three or four hours, then be like, cool, I can do that. Now, this is hard stuff. This is hard and it takes a lot of practice. So what I'm giving you in this class is a lot of tools, a lot of ways to listen, some tricks for writing things down and figuring things out quickly. And then I'm gonna give you a ton of things to practice and I'm gonna point you on how to find more things to practice later. But you've got to practice this stuff every day if you want to get good at it. And we'll talk a lot about that, what we get when we get into the class, how to practice, what to practice. And in the end you will be a much better musician for it. So it's worth the practice. You don't need perfect pitch or anything like that. I'll walk you through all that stuff. We're going to develop skills that focus on something called relative pitch, which is something you can learn again with practice. So let's dive.
