How early can you expect students to hear I, V, IV and V/V?
How about 6 years old?
I'm not kidding!
Children as young as 6 hear these harmonic functions, name them, and discriminate among them.
I've done this in minor too.
I've had 4 and 5 year olds hear tonic, dominant and subdominant. We don't call it that, but they can discriminate among them when presented to them in context and WITHOUT the theory.
In fact, I believe that the theoretical approach, in which most of us music teachers were trained in, actually inhibits ear training.
What's that mean when young children can do what some college music majors can't?
