Ear training online: hear it, then name it
A free ear training game you play in the browser. Two notes or a chord play, nothing is shown, and you name what you heard: higher or lower first, then intervals, then chord quality. Every answer spells the notes out and lights them on a keyboard, so a miss teaches you something.
Keep the streak going in the app — more than 30 game modes, free.
How the interval ear trainer works
Pick a level
Start with higher or lower if you have never done this. Move up once it feels obvious.
Listen
The sound is the question and nothing is shown. Replay it as often as you like — replaying is free and the clock waits.
Name what you heard
Tap an answer, or press its number on a computer keyboard.
See what it was
After every answer the notes are spelled out and lit on the keyboard. That moment is the part that trains the ear.
What ear training actually trains
Relative pitch: hearing the distance between two notes rather than the notes themselves. It is the skill behind playing by ear, singing back a line you just heard, and noticing that a chord changed before you work out what it changed to.
It is built by repetition with immediate feedback, which is why a short scored round beats a long session. Guess, find out at once whether you were right, and go again.
How to practise ear training so it sticks
Answer before you reason. The first impression is the thing being trained; counting semitones in your head trains arithmetic instead. With no impression at all, replay the sound and let it pass once more.
Stay on one level until you are above eighty percent, then add one thing: the falling direction, then both notes at once, then the next pair of intervals. Ten minutes a day beats an hour on Sunday.
From interval training to chords by ear
A chord quality is a stack of intervals, so the two levels feed each other. Major and minor differ by one semitone in the middle, diminished narrows both thirds, augmented widens them, and the seventh adds a note that wants to resolve.
The goal is to hear a quality as one colour instead of three separate pitches. Naming the quality of every chord you play for a week does more for that than any amount of reading.
Intervals and chord qualities
Every interval inside the octave with the number of semitones it spans, and an example written from the first degree. This is the chart to read between rounds, not during one.
Intervals inside the octave
| Interval | Semitones | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Minor 2nd | 1 | C → D♭ |
| Major 2nd | 2 | C → D |
| Minor 3rd | 3 | C → E♭ |
| Major 3rd | 4 | C → E |
| Perfect 4th | 5 | C → F |
| Tritone | 6 | C → F♯ |
| Perfect 5th | 7 | C → G |
| Minor 6th | 8 | C → A♭ |
| Major 6th | 9 | C → A |
| Minor 7th | 10 | C → B♭ |
| Major 7th | 11 | C → B |
| Octave | 12 | C → C |
Chord qualities
| Chord | Semitones over the root | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Major | 4 · 7 | C · E · G |
| Minor | 3 · 7 | C · E♭ · G |
| Diminished | 3 · 6 | C · E♭ · G♭ |
| Augmented | 4 · 8 | C · E · G♯ |
| Dominant 7th | 4 · 7 · 10 | C · E · G · B♭ |
The examples all start from one note. The distance is what you hear, so an interval sounds the same wherever it begins — which is exactly what the game asks of you.
An ear training app for iPhone and Android
ChordIQ takes this further than a browser round can: intervals and chords by ear, perfect pitch with no reference note, chord qualities, solfège scale degrees, melodic dictation where you tap back a melody you just heard, and progressions and cadences by ear. You can also sing a pitch into the microphone and watch a live cents meter score it.
- Read notes on treble, bass, alto and grand staff, plus marathon and survival runs.
- Key signatures, note values and rests.
- Rhythm: read a written bar and tap it in time, or hear a rhythm and echo it back.
- Singing: hold a pitch into the microphone while a live cents meter scores you.
- Ear training: intervals, chords by ear, perfect pitch, solfege and melodic dictation.
- Chords and scales on piano, guitar, ukulele or bass, with MIDI keyboard input.
ChordIQ is free to download on iPhone and Android, and most of its modes are free to play.
Put this game on your own site
Free for teachers and schools, with no account and no ads inside the frame. Paste the code into a lesson page, a blog post or a learning platform. It works on phones, and it keeps the language of the page you copied it from.
More free music games
More free tools on Songtive
- Intervals chartInterval names, semitones, inversions and audio.
- Solfege chartPractise movable-Do and fixed-Do syllables in any key.
- Chord formulas and symbolsHow every chord is built, and what each symbol on a chart means.
- Music theory exercisesBrowser quizzes on note names, intervals, chords, scales and key signatures.
- ScalesEvery scale in every key, with notes, formulas and diatonic chords.
Get ChordIQ — free
More than thirty game modes for staff reading, ear training, rhythm, singing, chords and scales. Piano, guitar, ukulele or bass.
Frequently asked questions
How do I train my ear?
Hear two notes, guess the distance, and check the answer straight away. Repeat that a few hundred times in short sessions. The checking is what teaches: listening to music without testing your guesses trains very little.
Can you learn relative pitch as an adult?
Yes. Relative pitch is hearing the distance between notes and it answers to practice at any age. Perfect pitch, naming a note with nothing to compare it to, is the one that mostly belongs to early childhood.
How long does ear training take?
Most people name the common intervals reliably after two or three weeks of ten minutes a day, and chord qualities within a month or so. Getting fast enough to use it while playing takes longer.
Is this ear trainer free?
Yes. Every level, all twelve intervals, both directions and the chord qualities are free, and there is no signup.
Should I remember intervals by songs?
It helps at the start and it caps you later, because recalling a tune is slower than recognising a sound. Use it for the two or three intervals you keep missing, and drop it as soon as you can.
Do I need an instrument for this?
No. The game plays the notes for you, so sound is all you need. If you do have an instrument, playing back what you heard after each round makes it stick faster.
Does this ear trainer work on a phone?
Yes. The answer buttons are sized for thumbs and the notes play through the phone speaker, although headphones make the narrow intervals much easier to hear. On a computer you can answer with the number keys and replay the sound with the space bar.
Is there a free ear training app?
ChordIQ is free to download on iPhone and Android and most of its game modes are free to play, with ads between rounds; ChordIQ Pro removes them. Its ear training modes cover intervals, chords by ear, perfect pitch, chord qualities, solfège degrees, melodic dictation, and progressions and cadences by ear.
