Interactive Tools — Eighteen Clickable Ear-Training Drills

Intervals, scales, chords, progressions, rhythm, keys, timbre — all playable right in the browser

All eighteen tools run directly in the browser: nothing to install, and no third-party services are called.

Sound is produced in two ways — synthesis (no assets, generated in real time) and timbre auditioning (a sample library loads on first click, around 28 MB, cached afterwards). The first is enough for pitch and interval work; the second exists to compare real instrument timbres.

How to use them

Each tool is an interactive version of one idea, not a standalone app. Three practical suggestions:

1. Do it before reading it. The "Next" link at the bottom of each page leads to the related general-knowledge piece — the tools make you hear it, those articles explain why. 2. Practise the pair you cannot do. If you cannot tell a major third from a minor one, do not start at the beginning; work only on that pair. 3. Ten minutes at a time. Progress in ear training comes from frequency, not from session length.

Intervals (4)

Starting from "distance", up to the leaps above the octave:

• What an interval is: eight distances at once — build "an interval is a distance, not a height"
• Interval identification drill — which of the three layers you stall at
• Major and minor thirds: one word apart — the hardest pair, and why
• Compound intervals: the leaps above the octave — wide intervals must be heard in two steps

Scales and modes (3)

One frame, different home bases:

• One melody, three keys — transposition changes proportions, not content
• Pentatonic: why it turns up everywhere — not simplicity, but nothing to avoid
• Modes: one frame, seven home bases — modes are not seven scales

Chords (4)

From triads to suspensions:

• Three chord qualities: major, minor, diminished — the difference is the middle note's distance
• Seventh chords: what adding one note changes — from a colour into a sentence
• Inversions: why a key in C does not start on C — a chord is named after its lowest note
• Suspensions: the second before a chord resolves — the held note is not a chord tone

Progressions (2)

Good single chords make good finished pieces:

• The three commonest progressions — why they are not clichés but the cheapest
• Cadences: where the feeling of stopping comes from — two notes arriving together

Rhythm (2)

Metre and pattern are two different things:

• Metre: why 3/4 and 4/4 sound different — metre says how strong each beat is
• Common rhythm patterns — patterns say what happens inside a beat

Keys (1)

• The circle of fifths: a map of twelve keys — a ruler, not a table of positions

Timbre (2)

• Timbre families: eight ways of making a sound — timbre is how the air is made to move
• One melody, several timbres — changing sound or changing music?

The limits of these tools

They are ear-training tools, not a textbook. Each one can tell you "this is what it sounds like", but "why it sounds like that" lives in the general-knowledge articles.

They do not replace a human teacher. When ear training hits a plateau, what you need is someone to point out where you are stuck — and no machine can do that (see judging a good teacher).

Next

• Not sure which to practise: start with Start Here
• General knowledge: seventy guides on music in general
• Glossary: gloss.midicn.com

Sources

• 本站自订说明，据实描述本站工具区的功能与实现方式

Used for fact-checking only; all prose is original.