The basic pedagogical idea behind the drone is simple: hearing intervals inside your head is really hard; hearing intervals against a constant tonic drone with a rich and ever-varied harmonic spectrum is substantially easier. Students who were left for tone-deaf sometimes just need a couple weeks of drone practice to balance their tonal center.

 

I use the drone all the time in class, as a background for scalar exercises, chorales, Ottman melodies, plainchant, etc. I tend to keep it fixed at "do" (see Movable Do Solfege), even when we're singing in a minor key; I've found this reinforces the tonal relationship between relative major and minor.

 

Get your drones here.

 

---Ness