How Mozart’s Sister Teased Him

Added: 2026-05-15

[00:00:00][music] [music] [music] I once heard this nerdy joke about how Mozart's little sister would tease him if he was in a room and there was a piano in there. Maybe he'd be standing off to the side. Well, she would walk in, go up to the piano and play [music] [music] and then walk out of the room and Mozart would get this unsettled look on his face. He'd feel all this tension. Then you'd have to run over to the piano [music] and play that C chord to resolve the sound. And really what this highlights is the power of a trained ear. You know, a lot of people are listening to music and they just hear it as sort of like a bunch of, you know, jumbled sounds, a bunch of hazy tones. But when you start listening deeper to music, you can hear things like, for example, that is the C major scale. So I played the notes C, D, [music] E, F, G, A, and then this note B, which is sometimes called the leading tone of the scale, ending on that note leaves you unsettled. It's unresolved.

[00:01:47]It really wants to go here. And you'll hear this in chord progressions. For example, [music] right, you have this tension here which wants to resolve to here or it might go here, [music] right? And then eventually back home to C.

[00:02:12]Now, sure this is a nerdy joke, but Mozart went on to be credited for bringing classical music to its pinnacle. I mean, imagine that. Imagine if you were a musician and you were known for, say, bringing the blues to its pinnacle. I mean, that's that's pretty impressive. And it really all comes back to having a good ear. You know, Mozart could hear the music in his head and then he was able to translate that to, you know, orchestras or to his composing. And that's why I really want to stress for all musicians that your ear is your most valuable possession.

[00:02:52]And if you haven't worked on upgrading it, then it's something that you can do that can really just skyrocket your musicianship. If this is something that you've wanted to do, give your ear an upgrade, then go to john mcclennon.com/goldenar and grab my free ear training cheat sheet for guitar players. This is going to show you some specific lessons related to learning ear training on guitar. You know, so much ear training is taught from piano. And you know, I mean, that's what happened to me when I started learning this stuff is everyone said, "Oh, well, just learn it from piano." And then, you know, oh, and transfer it over to your instrument.

[00:03:32]Like, yeah, you know, no big deal. and it I couldn't really connect the different intervals and the things to how it worked on guitar in songs, you know, to go from piano. So, I want to get rid of that extra step for you. Just go to john mcclennon.com/goldenar and grab my free ear training cheat sheet for guitar players. So, that's how Mozart's sister used to tease him. Hope you enjoyed this video and if you did, you might like this one next.