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Ear-training exercises for beginners. Start with sixty seconds.
A short listening check tells you which step to start at. Then five small exercises, in the order an ear learns: which way, what came back, how far, what colour, and the famous one last.
The sixty-second check
Five pairs of tones: is the second higher or lower? Then four short tunes played twice: same or different? Headphones help. No microphone.
The five steps
Each step is its own small tool. Ten minutes a day is plenty: the step you are on, then a few rounds of the one before as a warm-up.
- Higher or lowerears
Two tones, which way? The step shrinks while you get them right. The base everything else stands on.
Then: hum the second tone before you answer. If your hum went the same way, you heard it.
Then: find both tones on your instrument and check the direction with your fingers.
your start - Melody memory testears
A short tune, then again: same or different? It grows a note each round. Trains the ear to hold a phrase.
Then: sing the tune back before you answer. Where your version wobbles is where the change usually hides.
Then: play the first three notes back by ear. Getting the first note wrong is fine; the shape matters.
your start - Interval ear trainingears
Two notes, name the distance: from a second to an octave, ten a day. Where ear training proper starts.
Then: sing the interval up from your own note. Singers who can sing it can hear it.
Then: play the interval from three different notes. Same distance, same sound.
your start - Major or minor?ears
A chord, then in a song: bright or dark? The first step from single notes to harmony.
Then: sing the three notes of the chord, low to high. The middle one decides.
Then: play the chord and move the middle note down a semitone. Hear it turn.
your start - Perfect pitch testears
Twelve tones, no reference: name each one. The honest coda: a curiosity, not a goal.
Then: before you play anything, hum the note you think is A. Then check.
Then: name a note before you play it, then play it. Most people land near, not on it.
your start
Why this order
Ears learn the way children do: first which way a note moves, then holding a short tune, then how far apart two notes are, then the colour of chords. Skipping ahead mostly means guessing. The check above puts you on the first step you don't have yet, so you don't redo what you already hear.
Perfect pitch comes last because it is the odd one out. Naming a note with no reference is rare in adults, and training it is slow and uncertain. What musicians actually use is relative pitch, steps one to four. Take the test for fun, not as a grade.
Ten minutes a day, for a week
- Days 1 to 3: five minutes of your start step, five of the step before it (or the next one, if you started at step 1). Press "Done today" on the card; the phone remembers.
- Days 4 to 6: keep going until a session feels easy, then move one step on. The tools get harder by themselves while you get them right.
- Day 7: do the sixty-second check again. If your start moved, that is the progress. If it didn't, a week is short; another week usually does it.
Singers and instrument players
If you sing, pick "I sing" above: every step then ends with something to sing back, because hearing and singing train each other. After step 2, try Can I sing in tune? and What note am I singing?: they listen to your voice and say how close you were.
If you play, pick "I play an instrument": every step then ends with finding it on your instrument. Tune first (guitar tuner, or the one for your instrument on the same page), and use What note is this? to check a note you picked out by ear.
What this can and can't do
Short, regular listening practice makes most people better at telling notes apart; that is one of the most reliable findings in music learning. It doesn't make anyone a musician on its own, and none of these tools judges your voice or your talent: they say what you heard, round by round.
If even big steps stay hard after a week, try the tone-deaf test; real tone deafness is rare, and the test says so plainly. For one longer check across pitch, intervals, melody and rhythm, there is the musical ear test.
Your progress (the last check and the days you pressed "Done") stays in this phone's browser and is never uploaded. . How the site counts visits.