Ear gym
Practise hearing intervals, chord qualities, scales or melodic contour in short rounds with explained answers.
WORKING TOOLStart here
Choose one listening skill and work through ten questions. The tool generates its own examples, so you can begin without recording or importing anything.
By the end: Complete a round, understand the answer explanations and identify a contrast worth practising again.
What you need: Browser audio at a comfortable level. Start with the foundation bank; no microphone or music-notation knowledge is required.
Before you begin: Use the Play button in the workbench. No microphone, prior notation knowledge or separate software is needed.
How to use this tool
- Choose a practice mode and start a round in the workbench. Press Play before answering; replay as needed.
- Choose an answer, read the explanation and move to the next question. Reveal an answer when studying; a reveal is not scored as a correct attempt.
- Review the round and export the practice record if useful. Return to the contrast you missed rather than changing every setting at once.
Listen → answer → understand → repeat
Choose a skill and start a ten-question round. Roots vary to reduce memorizing one pitch. Replay does not cost points; revealing an answer records an unscored study. Synthesized tones use equal temperament, A4 = 440 Hz.
Ready. Start at a low listening level.
Your practice record
0 correct / 0 scored · 0 revealed · last 500 attempts retained. Progress stays on this browser.
| Skill | Answer | Your choice | Result |
|---|
Melodic recognition here means contour: rising, falling, arch, valley or repeated pitch. It does not transcribe songs or assess your hearing. Expanded intervals include downward pairs; chords remain root-position. Progress is a practice record, not a standardized ability score.
Hear direction before naming an interval
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
Worked listening case: a tone at 220 Hz followed by one at 440 Hz moves upward by an octave because the second frequency is twice the first. Reversing the order gives the same interval downward. In the workbench, choose a practice mode, play the generated question and replay it before answering. The notes in a live round vary; the explanation identifies the actual question. No external tone editor is needed.
Try it yourself
Write your answer before opening the explanation. Use the worked example if you get stuck.
Question 1
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.
Summary + next step
Complete a round, understand the answer explanations and identify a contrast worth practising again.
Keep the result: Practice history is stored in this browser when storage is available; use the export control to keep a copy elsewhere.
Sources and further reading
Read these references for the concepts used in the lesson.
Lesson updated 2026-10-22 · Guidance updated 2026-10-22
Coverage and further development
Practice intervals, chord qualities, scales and melodic contour in ten-question rounds, with replay, answer explanations, saved progress and export.