Weeks 9-10 · ear · scale-degree production
Drone holds the tonic. You sing each degree from memory.
The rule
pass: ±35¢ on 8 of 10
The grey line is the held tonic drone. Above it sit five degree slots — 1, 2, 3, 5, 6 — each with an emerald ±35 cent band around its true pitch. Each dot is one trial; emerald lands in the band, grey misses. The classic failure is the drone-flat: with the tonic ringing, you over-correct and land a hair below the target degree.
Hear it first
Listen to the drone alone, then with each target degree sounded over it. Notice how the 3rd and 6th “rest” on the drone, while the 2nd pulls toward 1 and the 5 floats above. That felt tension is the cue your voice is learning.
What’s happening.A sustained tonic is the cleanest reference your ear can have — it removes melodic crutches and forces you to feel each degree as an interval from 1. Trained ears land scale degrees within ~15¢ against a drone; untrained singers drift 50¢ or more on the 3rd and 6th, the “Indian-classical sweet spots” that depend most on internal calibration. 35¢ is the line between “in the key” and “recognisably out.”
Why these five degrees, not all seven. 1, 2, 3, 5, 6 are the major pentatonic — the “in-key safe set” that every folk and pop tradition leans on. We skip 4 and 7 here because they have strong directional pull (4→3, 7→1) that hides production weakness: a tone-deaf 7 can still land near tonic by accident. Pentatonic exposes pitch ownership cleanly.
Why this is the bridge.Everything from week-10 onward — tonic-dominant arpeggio, harmony-over-drone, a-cappella-resolve-tonic, song-from-memory — assumes you can grab a degree against a held reference. If this lesson isn’t settled, harmony lessons devolve into guess-and-check.
Session ahead
10 degree prompts · drone holds the tonic throughout · hold each target within ±35¢ for 1.5s · 8/10 promotes.