I would say the best thing to do is to internalize the sound/feel of the harmonic movement in one key really well before moving on. Take a simple standard and learn to play the arpeggiated chords really well before moving on. Until you develop your ear and have that working for you it is my belief that you only do yourself a disservice by trying to learn too much theory.
A friend of mine passed on a comment recently that someone he knew got in a collage jazz studies program. The instructor said something to the effect that if you learn your theory well enough it doesn't matter what you can hear or can't hear. I though that was one of the most lame and pathetic things I had ever heard. It was idiomatic of everything wrong with a certain type of academic approach to music. Who the hell wants to listen to an improvisor with an underdeveloped ear and a head full of theory?
A friend of mine passed on a comment recently that someone he knew got in a collage jazz studies program. The instructor said something to the effect that if you learn your theory well enough it doesn't matter what you can hear or can't hear. I though that was one of the most lame and pathetic things I had ever heard. It was idiomatic of everything wrong with a certain type of academic approach to music. Who the hell wants to listen to an improvisor with an underdeveloped ear and a head full of theory?