🧠 The Japanese rule to unlocking harmony

Hey music makers!

So I was really good at cramming in school.

Like, genuinely good at it. Chemistry, business calculus, macroeconomics, all those short stories I had to read and annotate for English class. I'd cram before the exam, get decent grades, and move on.

But if you asked me today what I actually remember from any of those subjects? Literally nothing.

Because I never really engaged with the material, you know? Never made emotional connections. Never anchored anything to actual experiences or childhood memories or things I cared about.

I just went through the motions, passed the test, forgot everything.

And I realized I was doing the exact same thing with harmony.

Like, literally the EXACT same pattern.

Until I found something this Japanese violin teacher discovered in the 1940s. He wasn't studying musical prodigies or anything like that. He was just watching German kids learn to speak their native language.

His discovery can be boiled down to one easy-to-follow rule.

Let me show you what I mean.

But first, here's your progression for the week.

Key: F minor
Verse Progression:
Fmi7 → Bbm7 → Gmi11 → Cmi7 → Fmi7

(i → iv → ii → v → i)

What makes this work:

Root motion is strong because it mostly moves in perfect intervals. Up a 4th, down a minor 3rd, down a 4th, down a 5th.

The last three chords create a 2-5-1 turnaround. Classic jazz move in a soul context.

Harmonic rhythm: one chord per two bars. Gives each change space to breathe.

This is the progression I spent weeks learning using the Japanese Rule. The approach I'm about to share is how I finally got it to stick.

Most people learn harmony like this:

Theory → Practice → Feel → Master

Study the rules first. Then try to apply them.

I definitely did this. And honestly? I'd learn something, feel pretty good about it, and then forget most of it within a week or two.

Shinichi Suzuki noticed something different while watching German kids learn to speak.

They didn't study grammar first. They listened and imitated. Absorbed fluency through repetition.

Listening → Imitation → Fluency → Literacy

He thought: What if music worked the same way?

And it did.

Kids who started at age three were playing Bach and Vivaldi. Not because they began with notation. But because they listened deeply, copied what they heard, and only then connected it to written music.

Suzuki flipped the order:

Feel → Use → Theory → Master

Hear it. Play it. Then name it.

Once it's in your body, theory doesn't overwhelm you. It simply explains what you already understand.

That's the Japanese Rule.

And the cool thing is, it's basically the opposite of cramming. Instead of trying to memorize a bunch of stuff quickly, you're building fluency gradually over time.

How this works for adults:

You already understand emotion. That's actually your biggest advantage.

Harmony is an emotional language of tension, release, home, and departure.

You've felt this your entire life in songs you love.

So theory becomes way easier when you're just naming something you already feel. When I try to memorize chord names without that emotional connection first, I find it just doesn't stick as well.

I had a singer-songwriter friend who played beautiful, emotional progressions. Really good stuff.

But when I asked what chords she was playing, she had no idea.

Everything was instinct. She didn't need theory to create.

Which showed me that sound first can be really powerful. Sometimes even faster.

Theory still matters. But it comes third, not first.

The 4 strategies I use:

I break down all four strategies in the video below. It's a full walkthrough of how the Mother-Tongue Method works and how to adapt it as an adult learner.

The key thing to understand is this:

The Mother-Tongue Method gets harmony in your body. The Vault Method helps you document what you learned so you're actually building a library, not just having nice listening experiences.

(More on that after the challenge.)

So after you complete a 7-day cycle like this, what happens next?

Here's what I used to do:

I'd analyze a song. Feel the emotion. Maybe even figure out the chords. And then I'd close my laptop and move on with my day.

Three weeks later, I'd vaguely remember "oh yeah, that song had a cool progression," but I couldn't recall what it was or how to actually use it.

Basically, I was back to my old cramming pattern. Quick analysis, get excited, move on.

No notes. No follow-up practice. No real review.

And then it would just... disappear.

That's the gap.

Cramming didn't work for chemistry. Turns out it doesn't work for harmony either. You need that immersion + some way to actually document it.

The Mother-Tongue Method teaches you to FEEL harmony.

But if you don't document what you learned, it just fades away.

That's where The Vault Method comes in.

It's a 4-phase framework for systematically extracting and organizing what you just heard:

Phase 1: Identify the key, tonic, and chord inventory

Phase 2: Label functional roles (tonic, predominant, dominant)

Phase 3: Map root motion and voice leading patterns

Phase 4: Decode cadences and emotional color

Every song you analyze becomes documented, reusable creative fuel. Not just a "oh that's cool" moment that disappears.

Once you sit with a song in this manner you’ll have a harder time forgetting what you learned.

The 7-day challenge gets the song in your body.

The Vault Method shows you how to extract its techniques so you can actually use them in your own writing.

Get The Vault Method for $10 →

It's a 25-30 page digital workbook with a clear set of prompts to guide your analysis, quick reference guides, and a video walkthrough. Works with any song you want to analyze.

"Can't Hide Love" took me three weeks to internalize using the Mother-Tongue Method.

Three weeks of just listening, humming, hunting for the bass line.

When I finally sat down to name the chords, they were already in my fingers. Theory just explained what my hands already knew.

That's what happens when you stop cramming or skimming and start really immersing yourself in the material. It actually sticks because it's in your body first.