Great work Andy, really cool design too!
It would be great to add a random mode that plays ascending or descending intervals.

Thank you guys for this positive feedback. Great you find the tools useful. I will try to work on the suggested points in the next days. Keep the ideas coming, there are really useful.

Anybody have ideas for some other tools?
I was thinking to integrate a tool to practice mode degrees and their relation to the major scale. Not sure about the concept yet, but this is something i want to have quicker available in my head.


Great idea Stephane, i will do that. Thank you


Try the option "random root" in the configuration panel.
I have set a default fixed root note to give the possibility to start really simple. Random root note can be activated on a later step.

cool website

great love it.

WOW thank you for putting it online, so easy to use and loaded with cool feature, from now on i will be ear-training using your site!

Can you please add a function to the ear trainer that allows you to hear how the intervalls sound like before you start the real training? You could create a small symbol in the configuration menu that - when clicked - plays the intervall. It would help me a lot since I am not familliar with most of the intervalls

True, that would make sense somehow. Thing is, i find the configuration panel already quite loaded with options and still want to keep it intuitive. But the idea is great to have somewhere a reference to listen to the interval.
I will think about this. Thanks !

I would suggest for now to start with only two intervals and deselect the others. Click the play again button a few times and really listen to each interval. Switch between the play mode as well. After add a third interval, etc ..

This post has been edited by wrk: Jun 4 2009, 11:21 PM

That's what I do to learn intervals ^^
I start with Unison, fifth and Octave, and I add new ones in between. Works like a charm! Thanks again for this site ^^

Actually I am doing the same thing. Unision, fith, sevth and octave were easy. I am learning minor 2nd and 3nd right now.
In Addiona checkbox with "select all/none" would be helpful.

Good idea. I have noted it ... thanks!

Looks great, impressive
Nice work man!

This is cool, I think it will be useful for lots of students.

Andy is doing great job with the site, I hope to see it improve in future and expand!

Thank you guys. I'm glad to hear that some of you will use the site. I would be interested in your experiences. Don't hesitate do send them here or send me a PM.


Thanks Pedja. For sure i got some motivation now to integrate improvements and other tools. Some of the suggested points are done already and will be published soon.

I liked the idea to play the interval with mixed instruments. Do you have an idea which instruments would work well together? As the root note can be random around one octave, the other instrument should still sound pleasant over a range of two octaves.

awesome site man!!!

Ear training is so useful!

Thats great to hear that improvements are already made Andy.

I suggest couple of things regarding instrumentation :

- Baritone Sax, Tenor Sax, Alto Sax and Trumpet (here you can also add Soprano Sax!). This is pretty standard 4 way arranging method in small jazz bands or any sort of backing for chord stabs in popular music songs. 4 instrument equals 4 note chords. You can also add BASS to that so that listener hears root of the chord in the bass. Perhaps you can expand it and make it available for listener to choose whether he/she wants to practice ROOT, 1st , 2nd , 3rd inversion of chords. That way bass note would not be root but rather change function based on inversions.

- Violins, Cellos and other string section instruments. This is also pretty standard orchestration tool and was used in early jazz stages (think Singer based music Ella Fitzgerald for example). A lot of film composers use this type of scoring to portrait emotions (like when the main character finally kisses with the girl he was chasing after whole movie, then you hear lydian mode and this sort of scoring!).

- Combination of Guitar Bass Piano and anything from above. You can of course change type of pianos from Acoustic to Electric, Fender Rhodes etc. It changes sound completely in 4 way context.
I can send you ranges for instruments if you want and need any !

Anyway I hope this was somewhat useful Andy. It might take a lot of work but this is from my experience really necessary tool for anybody to train ear to perfection. Especially if you plan to write good arrangements and understand other instrumentation, this is very much needed.
Take your time with all this, I am sure if you manage to pull it off it will be one of a kind website regarding ear training !

What about having chord progressions randomed. Let's say you have 5 chords played, you know a certain amount of them (could be selected) and you should fill in the others?

I just realized that this would take a huge amount of code, but if you have nothing to do for a week I think you should give it a try.

This post has been edited by Oxac: Jun 6 2009, 09:47 AM

Speaking of chord progression, there are many things that could be done !
For starters, make it available for listener to isolate and practice hearing in every key I IV V I , I VI II V , II V I, I V IV V I for example. Then besides this, you can offer Modal harmony and cadences in major scale modes. You can then add harmonic and melodic minor cadences. Not to mention that to all of this you can add Secondary dominant chords !
I realize this will really take a lot of time so thats why I mentioned instrumentation additions as it will have positive effect immediately !

That was extremely helpful Pedja.
Main work is to create all the soundfiles. To integrate them as sets is easily done. I have tried to create some sets, but i don't have good sounding VSTs for these instruments. My father is doing orchestration work with cubase and has some VSTs of good quality. I will check with him which instruments he has.

I was thinking about Bass, but a bass is normally some octaves lower. My question is, does octave differences matter somehow in ear training? Is for example a C1 played by bass and D3 played by guitar still a major 2nd in this context?

Inversions are a great idea !!
I got some work to do i think ... thanks a lot Pedja !!









By now the idea was to create simple "Click & Learn" tools .. one question one answer. To work on some more complex tools will be great, but for this my knowledge on theory/harmony is limited. The programming part is not really the problem and can be done quickly. Flash development is basically my job. What needs a lot of time is to find a concept, think about the content and structure it.

You welcome Andy.
I don't think you have to worry too much about VST sounds right now. Midi for trumpet for example sounds nothing like trumpet - the ones I tried at least This is more of a guide for developing great ear and doing arrangements. I am sure you can find a lot of free VST's that offer these in them. I use Reason and it has virtually everything in there. Allows you to create your own patches from scratch as well as to use original combined patches with effects and everything. That might be worth looking into...

Regarding Bass, you are absolutely right - bass plays octave lower than guitar for example. By definition C1 and D3 would be Major 9th. When we talk about intervals larger then octave we end on 15th which is two octaves away from first note. That is why if we have C1 and D3 it would be treated as major 9th rather then major 2nd. In practice, your ear will learn to hear major 2nd so it will not care how far away are these two notes apart.
Hope that answers your question somewhat.

One more thing... Sound ranges definitely influence ability to recognize intervals. If you play intervals in really low range of piano for example, it will be very hard almost impossible to recognize intervals. If you go from middle range up you should be perfectly fine with it !