Guitar ear trainer

A ten-minute daily ear routine

Short daily sessions do more for the ear than occasional long ones, so this routine fits in ten minutes and uses only the trainer’s own settings.

Start on the Intervals tab with the Starter pool: major 2nd, minor 3rd, major 3rd, perfect 5th, and octave. Leave playback on Ascending and sing the second note back before you answer. After each answer the trainer shows a familiar melody that opens with that interval; tie each distance to one tune and stop there. When Starter feels easy, move to Common, which adds the perfect 4th and major 6th, and later to All twelve.

Spend the middle few minutes on Descending: the same distances heard from the top note down, with the melody hints switching to tunes that start by falling. Then try Harmonic, where both notes sound at once and there is no melody hint to lean on. It is the closest thing here to hearing two strings ring together in a chord or a double stop.

Close with a couple of minutes on the Chords tab: major, minor, dominant 7th, major 7th, minor 7th, diminished, and augmented. Listen for the third first (bright or dark), then for a seventh on top, then for a fifth that sounds squeezed (diminished) or stretched (augmented).

Misses aren’t wasted. The interval side keeps a record of your answers in this browser and plays the intervals you get wrong more often, so the routine tilts toward your weak spots without you tracking them.