Occasionally I will place a guide "tone", usually an organ sound to "tune" my ear.
Doing a tune where the first note was a flat 3 I kept hitting the 1 and bending up to the minor 3rd.
Put the flat 3 in there and viola I was good to go.
Is that sort of what you meant?
As this is Techniques, not the Coffee House, I'm guessing you were serious.
T