Ear training
Turning sound into understanding: scale degrees, chords, and writing down what you hear.
Ear training
Turning sound into understanding: scale degrees, chords, and writing down what you hear.
Level 1
Hear whether a sound is higher or lower, whether two are the same, and match a note you are played.
What your ear already knows
You have been doing this since you were small. This is the lesson that says so, before anything asks you to do it deliberately.
5 minStart →
Which way did it go?
Before naming anything you hear, hear that it moved. The shortest lesson here, and the one everything else in the ear strand stands on.
5 minStart →
Step, or leap?
Once you hear that a note moved, the next thing worth hearing is how far — coarsely, long before you can name it.
5 minStart →
Finding home
You already know when a song has finished. This is the lesson that tells you what you were hearing — and how to find it deliberately.
4 minStart →
What finishing this level means
- Tell higher from lower, and same from different, 85% of the time
- Tell a step from a leap by ear
- Hear which note is home
Level 2
Hear where a note sits in the key: home, the note that leans, and the one that colours it.
What finishing this level means
- Name the second and third degrees by ear
Level 3
Degrees that lean rather than sit, and telling a major triad from a minor one.
The fourth and the sixth
Two degrees that are heard by where they want to go, not by how they sound alone.
7 minStart →
Major or minor
One note moves a semitone, and the whole chord changes character.
6 minStart →
What finishing this level means
- Hear the fourth and sixth degrees in a key
- Tell a major triad from a minor one by ear
Level 4
The leading note, the chord that will not settle, and holding two bars in your head.
The leading note
The seventh degree — a semitone under home, and audibly unfinished.
7 minStart →
Diminished, by ear
The chord that will not settle, and how to hear it in one move.
6 minStart →
Taking dictation
Hearing two bars and writing them down — the whole ear strand at once.
9 minStart →
What finishing this level means
- Hear the seventh degree in a key
- Tell a diminished triad from a major or minor one
- Write down two bars after three hearings
Level 5
Four-note chords, intervals with no key to lean on, and four bars held in your head.
Sevenths by ear
Tension and colour — the two ways a fourth note changes a chord.
7 minStart →
Intervals by ear
How far apart, with no key to measure against.
8 minStart →
Four bars
Twice the length, and the point where memory needs a method.
10 minStart →
What finishing this level means
- Tell a dominant seventh from a major seventh by ear
- Name a third, a fourth and a fifth heard on their own
- Write down four bars after three hearings