Piano Lessons and Ear Training

Ear training is an important aspect of learning any musical instrument. I just found a great site that offers free software that helps a lot. It has a free test that rates your ability to distinguish the difference in pitch between two tones, and a whole list of things you can download to work on ear training. Good stuff. Here's a little bit of what the home page says:

Ear Training WebSite: "Music students should know how important ear training is for their development. Also experienced professionals still need to stay in shape, especially with the rhythm. Even those not interested in music should realize that a 'tone-deaf' ear will somehow affect their personality as a whole. The very first requirement for a musician is to be able to imitate sounds. You hear sounds in your imagination or from the outside world. You should be able to replay those sounds using your voice or an instrument, and this is the real task for any player or composer. Technically this is what making music means. Musicianship starts here. A professional musician, especially one with the perfect pitch may consider this as childish. In fact even a pro should strive to improve the ability to memorize and replay sophisticated rhythm patterns. This contributes a lot to better musical phrasing. "

There's a lot more information on piano lessons and music books at Piano Lesson Reviews.