Ear Training: Hear What's Playing
Every lesson opens on a short video you watch and listen to, then teaches you to name what you just heard: notes, distances, chords and rhythms.
For anyone who enjoys music and wants to hear more in it, whether you play an instrument or not. Each of the twelve lessons starts with a video that plays the sounds it teaches, so you hear the idea before you read about it. By the end you can tell steps from leaps, name common intervals and chord types by ear, count a rhythm, and follow the chords under a song.
By the end you can
- Tell higher from lower, steps from leaps, and find the home note of a melody
- Name intervals from a half step to an octave by counting and by their sound
- Hear whether a chord is major, minor, diminished, augmented or a seventh
- Count a rhythm and follow a I–IV–V–I progression by ear, with a daily routine to keep improving
Hear the notes
- Higher and lower
Tell which of two notes is higher, find the same note an octave up or down, keep higher apart from louder, and match a note by humming.
- Steps and leaps: the shape of a melody
Hear each move in a melody as up, down or the same, tell a step from a leap, and trace a tune's shape as a line.
- The home note
Find the note a melody treats as home, hear why ending there sounds finished, and tell when a phrase is still waiting to move on.
Hear the distance
- Small intervals: half steps, whole steps and thirds
Count the four smallest distances between notes on a keyboard, 1, 2, 3 and 4 half steps, and learn what each one usually sounds like.
- Fourths, fifths and octaves: the open sounds
Count and recognise the perfect fourth (5), perfect fifth (7) and octave (12), tell a fourth from a fifth with two well-known tunes, and see why a fourth up and a fifth down land on the same note.
- Wide intervals and the tritone
Count sixths, sevenths and the tritone quickly by working back from the octave, know how each tends to sound, and use a four-step checklist to name any interval.
Hear the chords
- Major or minor? Hear the middle note
Tell a major chord from a minor one by listening for the one note that differs, the middle note, instead of guessing from the mood of the song.
- Diminished and augmented: the restless chords
Recognise the two chords that never sound settled, the squeezed diminished and the stretched augmented, and name all four triad types by their two gaps.
- Seventh chords: add a fourth note
Build the three most common seventh chords, hear why the dominant seventh pulls so hard towards home, and tell it from the softer major seventh and minor seventh.
Hear the music move
- Rhythm by ear: count what you hear
Tell the beat from the rhythm on top of it, count a beat in ones, twos, threes or fours, and write down a rhythm you hear one beat at a time.
- Following the chords under a song
Number the chords of a song in C, follow the bass to find them, hear V pulling home to I, and count bars to catch every change.
- Your daily ear practice
Build a 10-minute daily routine that trains every skill in this course, transcribe a short melody by ear step by step, and track your progress.
Keep it, don't just read it
Pathwise brings each idea back just before you'd forget it, with a quick question. Free on Android and on the web, in English and Persian.