Hear direction before naming an interval
Before you begin: No notation knowledge needed. Use a keyboard or Audacity’s tone generator at a comfortable level.
Pitch is how high or low a sound is heard. An interval is the distance between two pitches. Begin by judging direction: same, higher or lower. Do not make speed the first goal. A short repeatable exercise exposes uncertainty much better than guessing unfamiliar interval names.
Use the same sound and similar levels so that a brighter or louder tone does not become a shortcut to the answer. In this exercise, doubling a sine tone’s frequency raises it by an octave.
Worked example & observations
Original practice set: create separate one-second sine tones at 220, 330 and 440 Hz with amplitude 0.1 in Audacity. Listen to 220→440 (up), 440→220 (down), and 330→330 (same). Pause between trials. Ask a partner to choose the order while keeping the labels hidden, or prepare labelled clips and shuffle them without looking.
Your turn
Classify 440→330, 220→220 and 220→440. Which pair spans exactly an octave in the stated tuning relationship?
Show answer and reasoning
Down, same, up. 220→440 doubles the frequency and spans an octave. The 440→330 pair descends, but it is not an octave because 330 is not half of 440.
Watch for: The task tests a small controlled contrast, not absolute pitch or musical mastery. Stop if listening is uncomfortable; louder playback does not improve pitch learning.
Published and planned
Published: this starter lesson, worked example and exercise with an answer.
Planned: An in-site randomised listening trainer, interval scoring and a saved practice history.
Validation: source review and mathematical checks where applicable. Photography captures, audio listening and device workflows have not been performed for these lessons. Synthetic cases are labelled; no personal media or field observations are implied.
References
Original AUWEN teaching and examples. Sources reviewed 14 September 2026.
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