Ear Trainer

Welcome. This is a small app for training your musical ear: hearing the distance between two notes, the quality of a chord, and (eventually) producing those sounds with your own voice. It runs in your web browser, no install needed, and the audio you'll hear is real piano samples.

This guide will walk you through your first session and explain a little music theory along the way. You don't need to read it cover to cover. Skim what you need, skip what you don't.

Quick start (60 seconds)

1. Open the app in your web browser. Wait a few seconds for the message "Loading piano samples…" to disappear.
2. Make sure your computer's volume is up and your speakers or headphones are working.
3. Open the Reference panel first. On Level 1 (the default), you'll see a green ↓ caption that says "New here? Open the Reference section first…" — click that section open. Try clicking a few interval names (Major 3rd, Perfect 5th, Octave) to hear what each one sounds like. This gets your ear oriented before you start being quizzed.
4. Now click the green ▶ Play button under the "Guess The Interval" heading. You'll hear two piano notes played one after the other.
5. Underneath, you'll see buttons for each interval (Minor 2nd, Major 2nd, Minor 3rd, etc.). Click whichever one you think you heard.
6. The app tells you if you were right or wrong. If right, the next question plays automatically. If wrong, listen again with the ↻ Repeat Last button.

That's the basic loop. The rest of this guide explains everything else.

The three levels at a glance

The app is organized into three levels, shown as tabs across the top:

• Level 1 · Intervals — recognizing two-note distances by ear
• Level 2 · Triads — recognizing three-note chords (and their inversions) by ear
• Level 3 · Sing-First — practicing by producing notes with your voice, then verifying with the app

You can move between levels freely. They each have their own score, so working in Level 2 doesn't affect your Level 1 progress, and vice versa. There's no "unlocking" — visit any level whenever you want.

The intended progression is roughly Level 1 → Level 2 → Level 3, but many musicians benefit from doing all three in any session. Use what serves you.

A little music theory you'll want to know

If you're new to formal music theory, three concepts will get you 90% of the way through this app. If you already know these, skip ahead.

Pitch and notes

Music is built from notes — specific pitches like C, D, E, F, G, A, B. After B, the cycle repeats: the next C is called the same name but is one octave higher. A piano keyboard makes this visible — each white key has a name (CDEFGAB), and the pattern repeats up and down the keyboard.

Between most adjacent white keys, there's a black key. Each adjacent pair of keys (white-to-black, or in two places, white-to-white) is called a half step or semitone. The whole keyboard is divided into these equal half steps — twelve of them per octave.

Intervals

An interval is the distance between two notes, measured in half steps. Some have evocative names; some are just numbered:

• Minor 2nd — 1 half step. Jaws theme. Tense, neighboring.
• Major 2nd — 2 half steps. The first two notes of "Happy Birthday."
• Minor 3rd — 3 half steps. The first two notes of "Greensleeves."
• Major 3rd — 4 half steps. The first two notes of "When the Saints Go Marching In." Bright, open.
• Perfect 4th — 5 half steps. "Here Comes the Bride." Stable.
• Tritone — 6 half steps. "Maria" from West Side Story. Tense.
• Perfect 5th — 7 half steps. The Star Wars theme opening. Strong, consonant.
• Minor 6th — 8 half steps. "The Entertainer."
• Major 6th — 9 half steps. "My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean."
• Minor 7th — 10 half steps. "There's a Place for Us" from West Side Story.
• Major 7th — 11 half steps. The opening of "Take On Me" by A-ha (the falsetto leap).
• Octave — 12 half steps. "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." Same note, higher.

Hearing which interval is which is what Level 1 trains.

Triads

A triad is a three-note chord built by stacking two intervals above a root note. The four common qualities:

• Major triad — bright, "happy" sound. Root + 4 half steps + 3 half steps.
• Minor triad — darker, "sad" sound. Root + 3 half steps + 4 half steps.
• Diminished triad — tense, unresolved. Root + 3 + 3.
• Augmented triad — dreamlike, suspended. Root + 4 + 4.

Inversions

The same three notes of a triad can be arranged with any of them on the bottom. Take a C major triad — C, E, G. The three arrangements:

• Root position — C is on the bottom: C-E-G.
• 1st inversion — E (the third) is on the bottom: E-G-C.
• 2nd inversion — G (the fifth) is on the bottom: G-C-E.

It's still the "same chord," but each inversion has a different sound character. Hearing which inversion is being played is part of what Level 2 trains. (Triads only have three inversions. Four-note chords like sevenths add a fourth inversion — but those aren't in the app yet.)

That's the whole theory baseline. Onward.

Level 1 · Intervals

What it teaches

Recognizing intervals by ear — the foundational ear training skill. Most other skills (melody dictation, chord recognition, transcription, improvisation) build on this.

Layout

From top to bottom, Level 1 is laid out like this:

• A MODE row — Melodic vs. Harmonic.
• An INTERVAL DIRECTION row — Ascending / Descending / Mixed (only used in melodic mode).
• An italic green ↓ caption pointing at the next section, especially helpful on your first visit.
• The Reference panel — closed by default, click to open. Lets you hear any interval on demand without being quizzed. Use it for learning sounds before you test yourself on them.
• The quiz itself, under the heading Guess The Interval: the green Play button, the answer buttons, the score.
• An Interval Quiz Choices panel at the bottom — opens to let you toggle which intervals appear in the quiz.

The loop

1. Press ▶ Play. Two notes play.
2. Click one of the answer buttons (Minor 2nd, Major 2nd, etc.).
3. Right? It auto-advances to a new question after about a second. Wrong? It tells you what it actually was, and waits for you to continue.
4. ↻ Repeat Last plays the most recent interval again. Especially useful after a wrong answer, when you now know what to listen for.
5. Skip → generates a new question without grading the current one.

The two playback modes

Selected from the MODE row at the top:

• Melodic — the two notes play one after the other (like a melody). Easier to identify because you hear the distance directly.
• Harmonic — the two notes play at the same time. Harder, because your ear hears the combined sound, not the distance.

Start with melodic. Move to harmonic once you're scoring well.

Direction (melodic only)

From the INTERVAL DIRECTION row, when in melodic mode:

• Ascending — second note is higher than the first
• Descending — second note is lower than the first
• Mixed — randomized for each question

Descending is harder than ascending for most people. Worth practicing both. Mixed is the realistic test once you're confident in each separately.

Settings: Interval Quiz Choices

At the bottom of Level 1, there's a panel called "Interval Quiz Choices." Open it to see a row of small buttons (called "chips" in the app) — one for each interval. Toggle them on or off to control which intervals appear in the quiz.

Recommended starting pool: just Perfect 5th, Major 3rd, Minor 3rd, and Octave. These four are the most distinct and the easiest to learn. Once you can distinguish them reliably (say, 8 out of 10 right), add the next set: Perfect 4th and Major 6th. Build up gradually. Trying to learn all 12 at once is a recipe for frustration.

The Reference panel

This panel sits above the quiz, with a green ↓ caption drawing attention to it on first visit. Open it and click any interval to hear it. The Reference is for learning the sound of an interval, separate from the quiz — no scoring, no time pressure.

The Reference panel has two main controls:

• Root: Fixed or Random. Fixed (the default) gives you a chooser to pick the starting note (C, C♯, D, etc.) — C4 is selected to start. Random plays each interval from a different starting note. Try Fixed = C, then click Major 3rd, then Perfect 4th, then Tritone — you'll hear how each interval relates to the same starting point. Switch to Random when you want variety.
• Spacing slider. Controls the time between the two notes in melodic playback. Default is 1.5 seconds. Slower (try 3+ seconds) gives you time to internalize the first note before the second arrives.

Keyboard shortcuts on Level 1

Space (Play), R (Repeat Last), S (Skip), 1–9 (pick the Nth answer). See the consolidated Keyboard shortcuts section below for all levels in one place.

Level 2 · Triads

What it teaches

Recognizing the quality of a triad (major / minor / diminished / augmented) and which inversion it's in. This is the foundation for hearing chord progressions in real music.

Layout

Same general shape as Level 1, with chord-specific labels:

• MODE row — Blocked vs. Arpeggiated.
• ARPEGGIO DIRECTION row — Ascending / Descending / Mixed (only used in arpeggiated mode).
• The green ↓ "New here?" caption.
• The Reference panel — opens to let you hear any triad on demand.
• The quiz, under the heading Guess The Triad: Play button, Chord Quality row, Chord Inversion row, Submit button, score.
• Triad Quiz Choices panel at the bottom.

The loop

1. Press ▶ Play. Three notes play (either at once or in sequence).
2. Pick a chord quality from the Chord Quality row.
3. Pick an inversion from the Chord Inversion row.
4. Click Submit Answer (or press Enter).
5. The app tells you if you got it right. If you got part of it right (quality but not inversion, or vice versa), it'll tell you which.

You can change your picks before submitting. Clear Picks resets both selections.

The two playback modes

• Blocked — all three notes at the same time, like a held chord. This is how you usually encounter chords in real music.
• Arpeggiated — the notes play one at a time, bottom to top (or top to bottom, depending on direction setting). This makes inversions easier to hear because you can clearly identify the bottom note.

Most people find arpeggiated easier for inversions and blocked easier for quality. Switch between them depending on what you're working on.

Direction (arpeggiated only)

Same options as Level 1 — Ascending, Descending, Mixed. In blocked mode, direction is meaningless and the controls are dimmed.

The Triad Quiz Choices panel

At the bottom of Level 2, this panel (formerly called "Triad Focus") has two sets of toggleable chips:

• Chord quality: Major, Minor, Diminished, Augmented. Diminished and Augmented are off by default — they're harder, so you can opt in when ready.
• Chord inversion: Root position, 1st inversion, 2nd inversion.

This is your practice focus tool. Want to drill just major vs minor in root position? Turn off everything else. Want to focus on identifying inversions of a specific quality? Same idea — narrow the pool.

The Reference panel

Same idea as Level 1's Reference, sitting above the quiz, but with one button per combination of quality and inversion (so 6 buttons with just major/minor, 12 if all four qualities are on). Click any to hear that specific voicing. The same Fixed/Random root control is here, with Fixed at C4 by default.

Keyboard shortcuts on Level 2

Space (Play), R (Repeat Last), S (Skip), Enter (Submit Answer). See the consolidated Keyboard shortcuts section below for all levels in one place.

Level 3 · Sing-First

What it teaches

Producing intervals and chord tones with your voice. This is a fundamentally different skill than recognition — and it's how working musicians (singers especially, but also instrumentalists) develop deep internalization of musical sounds. If you can sing it, you really know it.

Layout

Level 3 has a different shape from Levels 1 and 2 because the workflow is different — there's no recognition quiz, just structured singing practice. From top to bottom:

• A MODE row — Intervals vs. Triads. (No direction control on Level 3 — singing direction doesn't really apply.)
• The practice area, under the heading Practice: target display, countdown, Play Root and rating buttons.
• A Target picker (open by default) — pick what interval or triad you're working on.
• A Practice settings panel — voice range, wait timer, continuous-practice toggle.

There's no Reference panel on Level 3 — the Target picker plays a similar role, but it's required (you can't practice without picking something) rather than exploratory.

The loop

1. Pick a target — for example, "Perfect 5th" — from the practice settings panel below.
2. Press ▶ Play Root. You'll hear one piano note. That's your reference root.
3. A countdown begins (default 5 seconds). During the countdown, sing up the interval from the root note. For a Perfect 5th from a root of C, you'd sing up to G.
4. When the countdown hits zero, the app plays the actual root + the target note so you can verify whether you sang the right pitch.
5. Click ✓ Got It if you sang it accurately, ✕ Missed It if not. Be honest with yourself; nobody's grading you but you.
6. Press ↻ New Root, Same Target to try the same interval from a different starting note.

Why this matters

The recognition skill (Levels 1 and 2) trains your ear to receive. Sing-first trains your ear to generate. Most professional musicians will tell you that being able to produce an interval on demand is the deeper skill. It's how you internalize that "Perfect 5th" isn't just a label but a felt sound you can summon.

The two content modes

At the top of Level 3, choose:

• Intervals — sing one note up from the root.
• Triads — sing the three chord tones up from the root, in sequence (root, third, fifth). The app verifies by playing the arpeggiated triad.

Practice settings

• Voice range — pick from Bass, Tenor, Alto, Soprano. This sets the range of root notes the app will pick, so the notes stay in your comfortable singing range. If you're not sure, start with Tenor (mid-range) and adjust if notes feel too high or too low.
• Wait timer — how long the countdown is, from 1 to 15 seconds. Default is 5. Most singers want between 3 and 8. Beginners often benefit from longer (8+ seconds) to give themselves time to find the pitch carefully. Advanced singers can drill faster (2–3 seconds).
• Continuous practice — when on, after you self-rate, a new root plays automatically. Great for getting into a flow state and drilling the same interval across many keys quickly. Turn off when you want to think between attempts.

Tips for sing-first practice

• Pick one target and stay with it for a while. Sing 10 or 20 Perfect 5ths in a row across different roots before switching. Repetition is what builds the internalization.
• Don't worry about being "in tune" with the piano exactly. Get in the right pitch range. Approximate is fine; you'll refine over time.
• If you can't hear yourself well, use headphones with one ear off, or sing louder. Some people benefit from cupping a hand to one ear.
• Honest self-rating matters more than getting "Got It" a lot. Marking yourself "Missed It" when you actually missed is part of the training — it tells you which intervals need more work.

Keyboard shortcuts on Level 3

Space (Play Root), T (Play Target Now), G (Got It), M (Missed It). See the consolidated Keyboard shortcuts section below for all levels in one place.

Keyboard shortcuts

Inside the app, there's a Keyboard shortcuts disclosure between the title and the level tabs at the top of the page. Click it to expand. Its contents update automatically when you switch levels — so you only ever see the shortcuts that apply right now. (In earlier versions, each level had its own keyboard-shortcuts panel; v0.9.0 consolidates them into one.)

For reference, here are the shortcut sets for the three documented levels (Level 4's section is coming in a future update):

Screen reader users — see the Accessibility features section below for important notes about putting your screen reader into focus mode before using these shortcuts.

Tips for effective practice

• Short sessions, often. Five to ten minutes daily is far more effective than an hour once a week. Ear training builds slowly and consistently.
• Start narrow. Master a small set of intervals/qualities before expanding. Trying to do everything at once leads to confusion and discouragement.
• Sing what you hear. Even in Level 1, try to sing the second note before clicking your answer. This bridges recognition and production.
• Use the Reference panel deliberately. Before quizzing yourself on a new interval, hear it in the Reference panel a few times. Lock the sound into memory first, then test.
• Mix it up. Don't only practice ascending. Don't only practice blocked chords. Variety builds generalization.
• Track patterns in what you miss. If you keep confusing Major 3rd and Perfect 4th, slow down and isolate just those two for a session.

Accessibility features

The app is built with accessibility as a priority:

• Full keyboard navigation. Every interactive element can be reached with Tab. A visible brass outline shows what's focused.
• Keyboard shortcuts for the most common actions on each level (see the Keyboard shortcuts section above).
• Screen reader support. All controls have descriptive labels. Feedback announcements (correct, wrong, the chord that was played) are announced via ARIA live regions automatically.
• Reduced motion support. If your operating system has "reduce motion" enabled, the app's transitions become near-instant.
• Color is never the only signal. Right and wrong answers have ✓ and ✕ symbols alongside the green/red coloring, so users with color vision differences (or in challenging lighting) still get unambiguous feedback.
• Skip-to-main-content link at the top of the page (visible when Tab-focused) lets keyboard and screen-reader users bypass the header and tabs.

Using a screen reader?

This app uses single-letter shortcuts (R, S, T, G, M, Space) for quick actions. Most screen readers also use these letters to navigate by region, heading, or button. To use the app's shortcuts, switch your screen reader into focus mode (sometimes called forms mode or pass-through mode):

NVDA

press NVDA key + Space to toggle focus mode

JAWS

press Insert + Z to toggle the virtual cursor off

VoiceOver (Mac)

press Control + Option + Shift + Down Arrow to interact with the page

Narrator (Windows)

press Caps Lock + Spacebar to toggle scan mode off

When you're done practicing, switch back to your normal browse mode to navigate the rest of the web.

A reminder of this is also available inside the app — there's a "Keyboard shortcuts" disclosure at the top of the page (between the title and the level tabs) that lists the shortcuts for whichever level you're currently on, and includes a brief screen-reader note.

If you find an accessibility issue, please report it — these features have been designed thoughtfully but real-world testing always finds gaps.

A final note

Ear training is a slow build. Don't expect to be hearing complex chord qualities perfectly after a week — most musicians take months or years to internalize this stuff deeply. The goal isn't to get a high score; it's to gradually grow a more accurate, more flexible musical ear. Some sessions you'll feel sharp. Others you won't. Both are part of the process.

Have fun with it.