Ear training for beginners: how to learn intervals by ear

Ear training is practice in recognising musical sounds by listening alone: intervals, chords, rhythms and melodies. The best place for a beginner to start is intervals, the distance between two notes, because every melody and chord is made of them. A few minutes a day with the ear trainer is enough to hear progress within weeks.

What ear training is

Musicians talk about two kinds of pitch skill. Perfect pitch, or absolute pitch, is naming a note with no reference, and it is rare. Relative pitch is recognising how notes relate to each other, given a starting point, and almost anyone can develop it with practice. Relative pitch is the useful one: it lets you play a tune you have heard, work out chords, sing in tune and tune an instrument. Ear training builds it step by step, and it also helps you notice when you are out of tune, which matters as much for singers as for players.

The twelve intervals

Within an octave there are twelve intervals, counted in semitones, the smallest step on a piano:

• 1 semitone: minor 2nd. 2: major 2nd. 3: minor 3rd. 4: major 3rd.
• 5: perfect 4th. 6: tritone. 7: perfect 5th.
• 8: minor 6th. 9: major 6th. 10: minor 7th. 11: major 7th. 12: octave.

Each has its own colour. The major 3rd sounds bright, the minor 3rd darker, the perfect 5th open and stable, and the tritone tense and unresolved. If you want to see an interval between two written notes rather than hear it, the music interval calculator names it, and you can find any of them on the virtual piano by counting keys, black and white together.

A beginner routine

• Start small. Learn four very different intervals first: major 3rd, perfect 4th, perfect 5th and octave. The ear trainer's easy level uses exactly these.
• Rising first. Rising intervals are easiest. Add falling intervals once you score well, then harmonic intervals, with both notes played together.
• Sing. Hum the two notes after hearing them. Singing connects the sound to your own sense of pitch and speeds learning.
• Short and often. Five to ten minutes a day beats an hour once a week. Stop when you feel tired; guessing builds bad habits.
• Add intervals gradually. When you reach about 90 percent on a set, add two or three more, such as the 2nds, the minor 3rd and the major 6th.

In the ear trainer, the lower note changes each time, between G3 and G4, so you learn the distance rather than memorising particular pitches. Notes are synthesised in equal temperament, and your score lasts for the session only.

Reference tunes and their limits

A classic trick is linking each interval to the opening of a tune you know. Common examples for rising intervals are the start of "Here Comes the Bride" for a perfect 4th, the leap in "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" for a perfect 5th, the first two notes of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" for an octave, the "Jaws" theme for a minor 2nd and the opening of "Greensleeves" for a minor 3rd. The ear trainer reminds you of one after every answer. Use them as scaffolding, not a crutch: running through a tune in your head is slow, and with practice you will recognise each interval by its sound directly. Falling intervals need their own references, since a tune that rises does not help you hear the same interval going down.

What to learn next

Once intervals feel familiar, move on to chord quality: major, minor, diminished and augmented triads. Then listen to how chords move, starting with the common progressions in Common chord progressions: the patterns behind thousands of songs; you can hear them played in any key in the chord progression generator. After that, try melodic dictation: listen to a short phrase and play or write it back. Rhythm deserves practice too, and tapping along with a metronome helps. Ear training also makes tuning easier, as How to tune a guitar: the notes, the frequencies and three methods shows when you tune by listening for beats.