[MUSIC] It's like learning a language. I tell my students that all the time. You have to keep practicing it, you have to use it, and it builds. You learn one thing and then it opens up another topic, and it all kind of comes together. And then you start to use it in different ways. So you have to really get the knots and bolts, like notes, and cords, and key signs, and intervals and all that stuff down so that you can start to speak the language and communicate with other musicians. And eventually become very independent, and use it in a creative way. >> I have taken a lot of electives in the ear training and harmony department, that's been my biggest focus. With the ear training thing, that's great because ear training is practical theory. That's when you're in rehearsal, when you're on the gig, anywhere. If your ear's trained, if you're able to identify what is going on, then you're in a position to fix things or make things better. You're able to improvise better because you understand the harmony that's happening. As far as harmony goes, again, it helps to have the ear to recognize the harmony that we've learned about or whatever. Just having the harmony, that's the vocabulary or the foundation of everything that's going on. >> Without the harmony, I don't know what I'm doing with the chords, I don't know what I'm doing when I'm putting different harmonies for the different instruments. I don't know anything. But when you learned harmony, you pretty much learned how to speak music. because when you're improvising, you're using chord scales, which you learn in harmony. When you're writing or arranging, you're using chord scales, and chord, and tensions, and all of those things you learn at harmony. Where you're doing melodies, you're also using a bunch of chord scales [LAUGH] and everything like that. So I think when you learn the rules, you learn how to do music. And I think harmony is important for that. And I've also heard, I personally, I used to be like, but I just want to write from the heart, I just want to make music from the heart. But you can't make music from the heart unless you know the theory. Thank you Berklee for the ear training [LAUGH] because when you're sitting there, you're just going do, mi, re, fa, and this does not make sense, I don't need these syllables. But then now I started this jazz choral ensemble, I probably would not be able to hit the notes with as much accuracy as I wanted to without air training. And I'm still going over all the ear training things to keep it up and to have my sign reading become a bit better every day. >> Harmony's also really helpful to me as a producer. To make a good song we have to really know how the harmony works for the song, and how different harmonies offer different emotion. Harmony's a really important language that you have to master to communicate. >> So if anything, the harmony and ear training courses were really essential in helping me establish really a catalyst between what I had already taught myself before Berklee and the composer I am right now. It just helped bridge your gap in a really coherent way, that even now what I'm trying to figure out a melody line, I'm just like, T, T-I there, there's do, all right. And it's something that I would have never even thought to do before I got to Berklee and before I took that course. And it's just something that's so ingrained in me at this point, and just makes so much sense that I know it's going to be something I'm going to use for the rest of my life as a musician.