DEV Community: Preeti

A simple ear training routine that actually sticks

Preeti — Fri, 23 Oct 2026 19:04:03 +0000

Ear training is the skill most players admit they should do and rarely keep up. It means hearing a note, an interval or a chord and knowing what it is without checking an instrument. Most routines fail because they are too long or too random. This one is short and ordered.

Why routines fall apart

People start with ten minutes of everything: intervals, chords, melodies, rhythm. A week later they have quit. The fix is to work on one skill at a time, for five to ten minutes, in a fixed order, and to repeat the same level until it feels easy before moving on.

A drill ladder from easy to harder

Hear the difference between high and low notes, then between two notes close together.
Match a pitch: play a note, then sing or hum it back.
Recognise two or three intervals that sound very different (for example a perfect fifth, a major third and an octave).
Add more intervals one at a time, and link each to a song you know.
Tell major and minor chords apart.
Pick out simple melodies and write down the first few notes.

Keep it small

Five to ten minutes a day beats an hour once a week. Do it before you start playing, when your ears are fresh, and stop while it is still going well.

Check yourself properly

Use an instrument or a tool to confirm your answers, and keep a note of which items you get wrong. Those are the ones to repeat tomorrow, not the ones you already know.

Theory and ear work together

Knowing what a major third is on paper helps you listen for it, and hearing it makes the name stick. Doing both beats doing either alone.

My full guide has the chart and a longer version of the ladder: How to Train Your Ear for Music Theory (Without a Teacher).

Intervals: the building block behind scales, chords and melodies

Preeti — Thu, 22 Oct 2026 23:31:57 +0000

The step up on the word "birth" in "Happy Birthday" is a major second. The first two notes of the Jaws theme are a minor second apart. Same idea, a different distance, and a very different feeling. That distance between two notes is called an interval, and a lot of music theory is built from it.

What an interval is

An interval is the distance between two notes. C up to E is a major third, and G up to B is also a major third. Same distance, different starting note. You measure it by counting half steps (semitones), which on a piano are the distance between neighbouring keys, black and white included.

The common intervals

Minor second: 1 half step. Major second: 2. Minor third: 3. Major third: 4. Perfect fourth: 5. Tritone: 6. Perfect fifth: 7. Minor sixth: 8. Major sixth: 9. Minor seventh: 10. Major seventh: 11. Octave: 12.

Why they matter

Scales are fixed patterns of intervals. The major scale goes whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole, half. Chords are stacks of intervals: a major triad is a major third with a minor third on top, and a minor triad flips them. Melodies are strings of intervals, and recognising them by ear is a big part of ear training.

Ways to remember them

Link each interval to a song you know. A perfect fifth is the first two notes of "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star". A perfect fourth is the start of "Here Comes the Bride". An octave is the first jump in "Somewhere Over the Rainbow". The reference songs do the work for you.

Consonant and dissonant

Perfect fourths, fifths, thirds, sixths and the octave sound stable. Seconds, sevenths and the tritone sound tense and want to resolve. That tension is a tool: it is what makes a dominant seventh chord pull back to the home chord.

My full guide has exercises and a longer list of reference songs: Intervals Explained: The Building Blocks of Melody and Harmony.

The circle of fifths, explained without the jargon

Preeti — Thu, 22 Oct 2026 22:20:45 +0000

The circle of fifths looks like a clock face filled with random letters. It is not random. It is a map of how the twelve keys relate to each other, and once you can read it, it answers a lot of questions at a glance.

What it shows

The twelve major keys are arranged in a circle. Moving clockwise, each key starts a perfect fifth (seven half steps) above the last: C, G, D, A, E, B, then F sharp, and so on back round to C. Moving anticlockwise goes down a fifth, or equivalently up a fourth: C, F, B flat, E flat.

Sharps and flats

Each step clockwise adds one sharp. C has none, G has one (F sharp), D has two (F sharp and C sharp), and so on. Each step anticlockwise adds one flat. F has one (B flat), B flat has two. That is why you can work out a key signature by counting steps from C.

Neighbours are close relatives

Keys next to each other share almost all their notes. C major and G major differ by a single note (F versus F sharp), so changing key between them sounds smooth. Keys on opposite sides of the circle share very few notes and feel far apart.

Relative minors

Every major key has a relative minor that uses the same notes. It sits three half steps below the major's root: A minor for C major, E minor for G major, and so on. Many circle diagrams show the minors on an inner ring.

Useful in practice

The three chords that belong together most often in a key (I, IV and V) sit in a row on the circle. In C that is F, C and G. This is why so many songs use those chords, and why moving round the circle by fifths is such a common chord progression.

My full guide has the diagram and worked examples: Circle of Fifths: The Complete Guide for Beginners.

Music theory for drummers: what you actually need to know

Preeti — Thu, 22 Oct 2026 22:19:27 +0000

Drummers get told they do not need theory, and then get asked in rehearsal whether the bridge is in 6/8 or 12/8. The truth sits in the middle. You do not need to read a full score, but a handful of ideas will make you faster to learn songs and easier to play with.

Rhythm is your home turf

You already feel pulse and groove better than most players. Theory just gives names to it: the beat, the bar, the time signature and the subdivision. In 4/4 there are four quarter-note beats per bar. Split each beat in two and you get eighth notes, split it in four and you get sixteenths.

Time signatures worth knowing

4/4 covers most rock and pop. 3/4 is the waltz feel. 6/8 is two big beats, each split into three. 12/8 is four beats split into three, which is why it feels like a slow rolling groove. 5/4 and 7/8 show up in prog and jazz, and they are easier once you count them in groups (3+2, 2+2+3).

Song structure

Most songs are built from verses, choruses and bridges, usually in groups of four or eight bars. If you can hear where a section starts and count the bars, you will land fills and crashes in the right place without reading anything.

A little pitch knowledge goes far

You do not need scales for the drums, but knowing the key and when the chords change helps you follow a song. Ask the band for the chord chart and listen for the root moving. Tuning toms to the key of the song is a nice touch if you want it.

Talking to the band

Words like bar, count-in, half-time, double-time, push and pull come from theory. Knowing them saves rehearsal time.

I wrote a longer guide with examples here: Music Theory for Drummers: What You Actually Need to Know.

Do you need music theory to make music? A practical answer for beginners

Preeti — Thu, 22 Oct 2026 22:06:00 +0000

Short answer: no, you do not need music theory to start making music. People write songs and produce full tracks by ear every day. But theory is a shortcut, and a small slice of it saves a lot of guessing.

It depends on what you want to make

A bedroom producer, a guitarist in a covers band and someone who wants to score short films all need different amounts. If you mostly play by ear, you may only need the names of things so you can talk to other people. If you write or arrange, knowing how chords relate to each other starts paying off quickly.

What theory actually does for you

Theory does not tell you what to play. It names what you already hear. When you know that a progression is built on the first, fifth, sixth and fourth notes of a scale, you can move it to any key, swap one chord for another, and understand why it sounded right in the first place.

It also helps when you get stuck. If a melody sounds wrong over a chord, a basic understanding of keys tells you which notes are likely to fit instead of leaving you to try all twelve.

The smallest set worth learning

If you want the minimum, learn these in roughly this order:

The major scale and the notes of one key.
The chords that belong to that key.
Three or four common progressions.
Basic rhythm and time signatures.
How a song is structured (verse, chorus, bridge).

That is a few weeks of casual practice, not years. You can leave modes, extended chords and analysis until something specific gets in your way.

A good rule of thumb

Learn the next small piece of theory when a real problem shows up: a chord that does not fit, a key change, an idea you cannot explain to a bandmate. It sticks much better when you need it right now.

I wrote a longer version with a table of goals and a FAQ here: Do You Need Music Theory to Make Music? An Honest Answer. The site also has free tools for practising scales and chords.