That is really old school teaching and remember I was short of 5 years old when I started. My teacher thought it would be easier on all of us young students to just count half steps. I mean, to a kid not yet 5, to look at the keyboard, and center my view on C, E is not the 3rd key up from the C. There are 2 black keys in there so E is the 5th key up from the C. This was his way of teaching half steps from whole steps. It wasn't "the third in the scale" because at that age, just sitting at a piano on day 1, I didn't know what a C scale was.

So, ANY key you start on, C, F, Ab.... that key is "zero" and you count your half steps from there to figure out that in Ab, C is the third in that scale.

It worked out well for me. Just like "5 lines and 4 spaces". My first question, and I remember this almost 60 years later, was "But what about the big space under and over those lines? Those are spaces too, aren't they? Really big spaces." And he did not let me touch a piano until I knew that stuff. I sat at a plastic molded keyboard and he would point to a dot drawn on staff paper on a blackboard and I had to show him where on that little keyboard the note was that he was pointing to. 6 weeks of that. Then we moved to "If you are playing in D, point to D, and I say move to the 4th, what is the next chord?" He completely BEAT theory into my head for almost about 10 weeks before I could move to an instrument that made sound. And then the ear training started where for the last 15 minutes of my hour he would play a note , with my back turned, and say "Okay. Can you tell me what that note is?" And if I got it right (40% of the time back then) he would play another note and make me identify it. Early lessons were always perfect intervals. Root, 5th, back to root, 6th, dominant 7th, back to root, then 4th.... He had a unique way of teaching and it varied from student to student. I still have at least close to perfect pitch, for sure I have relative pitch. I took lessons from him for 5 years and we often didn't play. We just talked and looked at sheet music and identified more and more complex notation. Tied notes, what the Italian stuff meant.... 7 years old then and learning terms like forte, pianissimo, fermata, grave.... he was intense. Old gruff German guy who I learned later in life was a marshmallow filled teddy bear.

But I digress, as I often will..... That's where I learned chord formulas.

Last edited by eddie1261; 10/25/15 07:23 PM. Reason: typos