How Tonic Sense Lessons Actually Work

So here's how to use the lessons in Tonic Sense.

Three Different Learning Methods

The app has three different pages of lessons, one for each learning method. You pick which method you want to work on and go to that page.

Solfege Syllables – The standard Do Re Mi Fa Sol La Ti system. (Tonic Sense uses Movable Do, meaning Do is always the tonic of whatever key you're in.) This is good for singers, and for anyone who needs to talk about music with other musicians. "It goes Mi Sol Mi Do" is clearer than trying to hum it.

Numeric Scale Degrees – Same melodies but you answer with numbers. 1 3 5 instead of Do Mi Sol. I think this is better if you play chords or think about bass lines, or if you naturally think in numbers when you're working out how a song goes.

Piano Keyboard – You play the notes on a visual keyboard in whatever key signature you pick. This is the one I use most because I need practice finding notes in different keys. Good for transposing, for getting comfortable with all 12 major keys, and for connecting your ear to your hands.

Most musicians will probably want to practice all three methods at different times. I know I do.

Working Through a Lesson

Each lesson has somewhere between 2 and 30 short melodies. Most are only 10-15 notes long.

When you open a lesson, you're on the Exercise Player screen. Here's what happens:

Click the Play button to hear the melody. You can replay it as many times as you need to. (I usually need at least twice, sometimes more if it's tricky. And sometimes the first note gets cut off and I haven't figured out why yet.)

Then start clicking your answer – syllables, numbers, or piano keys depending on which page you started from. The notes you click get listed at the top of the screen so you can see what you've entered.

The first note will always be one of the orange highlighted ones. So if you're thinking "that sounds like Mi" but there are two possible Mi's showing, it's the orange one. This matters more than you'd think when you're figuring out where a melody sits in the scale.

As you click, you can see immediately whether you're right or wrong. If you mess up too many notes, you can click the circle arrows to clear your answer and start over. (I do this all the time.)

After you play the last note correctly, click the Next arrow to move to the next melody. When you finish the last melody and click Next one more time, use your browser's Back button to return to the lesson list, or use the menu to go anywhere else.

Piano Keyboard Exercises Work a Little Differently

The steps are the same, but with a couple of differences:

Before you click Play, select which key signature you want to practice. You can pick any of the 12 major keys.

The tonic notes (Do, or 1) will be bordered in blue so you know where "home" is. The first note will still be one of the orange highlighted ones.

On a desktop screen you'll see the numeric scale degree buttons at the top for reference, and the piano keyboard at the bottom where you actually answer. On a phone screen you only see the piano keyboard because there's not enough room for both.

The Lessons

There are hundreds of melodies grouped into lessons by difficulty and type. Some are hymns, some are children's songs, some are Christmas music, some are traditional folk tunes. Some focus on specific intervals or patterns. The idea is you work through them gradually and get better at recognizing what you're hearing.

The app is still in beta so things are still being added and fixed. But it's stable enough to use now.

If you run into bugs or have suggestions, there's a Feedback link in the menu. All feedback is anonymous – it's just a form.