Article updated on January 5, 2025 by Byothe
After reading my article on Chordify, a tool to easily find the chords of a song, an anonymous reader asked me a few days ago to write an article on " how to exercise your ear (musically), for example by finding notes, or even chords by listening“…I thought this was a great idea, so I scoured the web for a tool to train your ear.
With this mission in mind, I came across the English-language site Toned Ear on which I discovered a multitude of tools and exercises dedicated to musical ear training.
So yes, the site is in English, yes, the site uses Anglo-Saxon notation (A, B, C… rather than La, Si, Do…)… but this free site is very complete and has the exhaustiveness of the workshops necessary to perfect one's musical ear. So for the most grumpy, here is a little reminder of the notation equivalences:
- A = The
- B = If
- C = Do
- D = Re
- E = Mi
- F = Fa
- G = Sol
- H = uh no, it’s good we’ve been around…
The design of the site is a bit old, but the exercises proposed by Toned Ear are very effective and well designed. They are grouped around 8 themes:
- Intervals : you will hear a sequence of two notes and you will have to identify the interval between the two
- Accords: this exercise will train you to identify the type of chord you hear (major, minor, diminished, etc.)
- All Products : identify the scale you hear
- Chord progression : identify each chord in the progression
- Note : the ultimate exercise, identify the note played
- Functional ear : listen to a chord progression followed by a single note. Identify that note in relation to the progression
- Intervals in context : combination of Interval and functional ear exercises
- Melodic dictation : listen to a short chord progression followed by a short melody. You must identify the major scale degree of each note in the melody.
Finally, the site, probably created by a music teacher, gives some tips for training effectively. Here are the main points in French:
- increase the frequency of your training, by their duration (it's regularity that pays)
- Start with simple exercises and gradually increase the difficulty
- track your progress (note the progress somewhere)
- don't hesitate to "sing the scales and intervals" to better internalize them
- practice transcribing your favorite songs on your (musical) instrument
In short, Toned Ear is a very good tool, to use regularly to progress effectively. If you know other sites dedicated to learning music, do not hesitate to tell us about them in the comments!
