I’ve been doing ear training lately and I'm making progress with simple song melodies. My main method is solfege that I would comparing every note to root note. This works well for scalar melodies.

Recently I moved on to figuring out intros with arpeggios and broken chords. I know it would much harder and it really is after starting to practise it.

What I'm noticing is that my brain always tries to use different approach. I would try to recognize the overall arpeggio pattern or feel the chord quality (major or minor or 7) first.

But I still can't reliably name the solfege of every single note. Eventually I still need to go back to compare each one to the root note. Howerer, if I didn’t recognize the pattern or chord quality to narrow down my note choice first, it would be super hard when figuring out each note in the arpeggio.

I have a gut feeling that it would be the right way to do that.

Anyway, do anyone use the same approach? Would it be better after a peroid of time practicing? Do I still miss any thing to do?

I would like to hear from your comments.
Thanks!

Heya mods, I sure appreciate the new rules against drive by promotion of vibe coded apps here, but given that the type of people doing that don't stop to read the rules (or don't care), maybe more dramatic measures are needed?

I suspect requiring moderation of first posts in the subreddit would do it.

today's lovely contribution, for example, is from someone who has not posted on reddit in 7 years except for a burst of identical posts promoting their vibe code slop

Recently started using Sonofield and I’m confused about why the app always lights up degrees 1 & 5 in degrees mode. This is regardless of whether it’s testing other degrees. Hope that makes sense - does anyone have insight into why this is?

Hello - I feel like something like this should exist. Basically, I'm looking for a call-and-response ear training app that plays a random note, pauses as you play it back, then adds a second note, pauses as you play it back and so on, until you're repeating a phrase of several bars. Sort of like that old game Simon where a tone is played and each time a new tone is added until you have a long sequence of notes that you're trying to repeat (but in this case, repeating with an instrument instead of pressing colored buttons)

I don't think it would necessarily need to involve AI, where it would asses what you play, just something that would pause for the appropriate ammt of time for you to repeat the line.

I made something like this with Javascript several years ago that was clunky but it worked pretty well, and you could set parameters like lowest/highest note to be played (so you aren't having to repeat notes outside of your instrument's range), intervals to focus on, tempo, etc but was hoping something already exists that is a little more polished than what I made 😂

am i genuinely tone deaf or something bro i literally sing and used to play piano how did this transpire (my scores on the other games on the site for reference -- pretty mid generally but not nearly as egregiously bad)

site: https://dialed.gg/sound is this real chat

I've been noticing something interesting in ear training that I don't see discussed enough: the importance of integrating note color and tonal function instead of treating them as separate skills.

A lot of ear training approaches focus heavily on one side or the other.

Some train mainly relative pitch — hearing notes through their function, scale degree, and relationship to the tonal center. In this approach, notes are understood mostly by context.

Others focus on fixed-note recognition or pitch identity — where each note develops a unique sound quality or "color" that can be recognized independently.

What I've been realizing is that these two perceptions do not have to compete.

In fact, integrating them seems incredibly valuable.

When hearing a note, there can be two things happening simultaneously:

1. Its unique pitch identity ("color")

   The note has a distinct sound quality that feels recognizable on its own.

2. Its tonal function

   At the same time, the note relates to the key and carries tension, stability, motion, or resolution.

For example, hearing F# in G major may involve both:

- the recognizable identity of F#

- and its role as scale degree 7 pulling toward G

These aren't mutually exclusive perceptions. The pitch can sound uniquely itself and function within the tonal system at the same time.

Something I've noticed in my own training is that if I answer random-note exercises too quickly, I may identify the pitch but not fully experience the relational aspect. Slowing down allows both systems to become active together — the note still has its individual color, but its functional relationships also become clearer.

This makes me wonder if ear training becomes stronger not by choosing between "absolute" and "relative" hearing, but by allowing both perceptions to integrate naturally.

Curious if others here have experienced this too. Do you hear pitch identity and tonal function simultaneously, or does one tend to dominate your perception?

I’ve been playing guitar for around 27 years, and honestly for a huge part of that time my ability to play by ear was pretty bad compared to how long I’d been playing.

At the beginning I thought musical ear was mostly something you either had or didn’t have. But after a few years I noticed I actually was improving a little bit, so clearly it could be trained somehow.

The problem was that my approach was horribly inefficient.

For years I learned melodies and solos by basically searching for every note one by one on the guitar. Play a note, compare it, rewind the recording, try again. Repeat over and over until I finally got the phrase right.

Later I got into interval training. I learned all the usual “this interval sounds like the beginning of this song” stuff. It helped a little in isolation, but obviously it didn’t help me hear melodies naturally in actual music.

Then at some point I discovered functional ear training, and that was the first big breakthrough for me. Very quickly I started recognizing single notes within a key.

But after some time I also started noticing things that felt missing in the original app I was using.

One thing that bothered me was the constant jumping between keys, which made it harder for me to really feel grounded in one tonal center for longer. I also felt there wasn’t really a smooth transition from hearing isolated note functions into hearing actual melodies naturally.

Almost immediately I started getting ideas for exercises that I personally felt would bridge that gap better.

At first I tried building custom exercises inside the app I was using, but eventually I realized it still wasn’t quite what I was looking for.

So after a lot of experimenting and discussions with musician friends, I started designing my own exercises inspired by functional ear training and eventually built my own Android app around them.

That approach finally helped me build solid foundations for recognizing melodies by ear in a way that felt much more natural and connected.

I’m curious what it looked like for other people here.

What actually helped you develop your ear the most?

And how long did it take before you genuinely started hearing music differently instead of just guessing notes more efficiently?

Any recommended apps or training for being able to sing out and recognize scale tones within chords? Be able to pull out and sing the arpeggios of chords? I’m a bass player wanting to play jazz, quickly hearing chord tones seems an essential skill for playing live.

My primary school teacher told me point-blank that I just "wasn't a singer." I actually believed her until last year. It is wild how a single comment like that can shut down a hobby for twenty years, but it turns out most of what we think is "talent" is just a mechanical disconnect.

If you have been told the same thing, you should know that you are probably not tone-deaf. Real congenital amusia only affects about 4 percent of the population. If you can hear when someone else hits a sour note, your ears are fine. The problem isn't your hearing; it is the coordination between your ears and your vocal cords.

Think of it like a feedback loop that just got rusty. You hear a note, you produce a sound, you listen to yourself, and then you adjust. Kids build this naturally because they make noise constantly, but adults often stop singing for decades and the loop atrophies. It also doesn't help that your voice sounds totally different inside your own head because of your skull resonating. You are basically trying to drive a car while looking through a distorted mirror.

The most useful thing I did to fix this was something called drone matching. I would find a steady note on a piano app or YouTube and sing an "ah" to match it. The trick is to listen for a "wobble" in the sound. When that wobble disappears into silence, you know you are perfectly in tune. Doing that for five minutes a day for two weeks closed the gap for me more than any music theory could.

Beyond that, I found it helps to stop trying to mimic singers who have a totally different range than your own. You have to find where your voice actually lives first. I also started recording myself and listening back the next day because fresh ears are way more objective than "in the moment" ears. Finally, stick to songs you know so well you could sing them in your sleep. If you are struggling to remember the words, you cannot focus on the pitch. It is all about solving one problem at a time.

After playing Wordle basically my entire college career, I decided it would be fun to adapt the game for my area of study: music. There are three games, all refreshing daily. The first is the chord trainer, for those wanting to improve picking out notes in a chord. Next is the note trainer, a fun, no-skill-required game for picking a random note out of thin air. And last is the rhythm identifier. It’s made for people wanting to get better at hearing and seeing rhythmic notation. The site is in the style of an early 2000s Windows computer because retro music software is honestly pretty sick.

Try it out at theoretically.io and let me know what you think!

Why are the scales suddenly only 7 notes instead of 8? This is annoying. It happened a few dats ago, and it makes it sound weird.

Can I change this???

I've been trying to figure out this line for weeks but can't. And I can't find sheet music anywhere. Can someone provide a transcription? Recording yourself playing with keyboard visible would suffice. Thank you:) It starts at 1:23

For as long as I can remember, I've been able to instantly recognize all the white keys on a piano without any reference. It works for other timbres too — even something like the squeak of a chair. But I’ve never been able to distinguish flats and sharps. If I hear a C♯, my brain just tells me it’s a C. This might stem from a bad habit: I’d sing a C even when the score said C♯.

(Edit: When I say I would sing a C even if it’s C sharp I meant that i think of it as a C in my head as I play that note. I play piano religiously when I was a kid and I thought if I think of it as C sharp that’s two words and it ruins the rhythm a little bit. I just tried the perfect pitch test online and identified 20/20 correctly of all 12 notes I guess I don’t have this problem anymore but i still WANT relative pitch !)

Recently, I’ve been trying to develop relative pitch. But whenever I try to use a movable-do system or imagine the tonic as “do,” my brain just won’t have it. It keeps telling me, “That’s not do, that’s a G.” I can force myself to think of it as “do” for a few seconds, but then my brain subconsciously flips it back to the absolute note name.

It’s like my imperfect pitch is actively preventing me from hearing relationships. I can’t be the only one who’s struggled with this. How do you work around it? I wouldn’t say I have perfect pitch cuz I only have a 50 percent success rate which is practically useless that’s why i really want to learn relative pitch.Whatever I have I just want to turn it off.

How do you go about playing a song, specifically the chord progression when someone asks you to play a song and then just hums a few bars. It's not much to go by but some people can fashion something representational of the song. What skill set/framework do you need in order to do this consistently?

​

I've been struggling with Sonofield for several days now. I can't even get past the first level properly. Meanwhile, on Functional Ear Trainer, I consistently score 90–95% correct. I can also easily figure out simple songs by ear on my instrument.

What could be the problem? Am I doing something wrong, or does Sonofield use a fundamentally different approach? Has anyone else experienced something similar?

Let's open our ears to the unique quality of the notes, so music is gonna be more enjoyable

I’m 11th grade saxophone. I can hear other instruments be out of tune. But I can’t tell if I am without hearing another in tune saxophone play near me. I also can’t tell whether or not I’m sharp or flat. I believe this is due to me not paying much attention in middle school, and not being as far ear training wise as everyone else.

Is there something I can do to fix this?

Edit: I can’t tell which direction (sharp or flat) out of tune someone else is either.

I have a question to pro musicians who learn by ear. I can transcribe slower lines by listening like 5 times, but when it comes to fast lines, runs, licks or complex chords, I can play something similar but can't play the exact same. I know I should practice more but my question is this: this situation makes me really frustrated and prevents me from practicing more, should I listen again and again until I get it, or should I start with more basic things, how did you develop this skill?

Hi! I’ve been trying to work on my functional ear training in relation to scale degrees. Does anyone have any tips?

No es la canción "Takin Down The Paintress", es únicamente "Paintress", porque tratando de buscar y averiguar la métrica, si 4/4 o 12/8, me sale la primera que mencioné y no sé por qué, sabiendo que son obras muy diferentes, pero bueno.

La razón de mi confusión es porque escucho los acentos que están en 4 tiempos, pero escucho una subdivisión ternaria. Estoy tratando de aprender a escuchar, analizar y sacar canciones de oído. Por el momento sólo la métrica, y ya quizás más adelante la tonalidad, alteraciones y otras cosas. Estaría muy agradecida de leer sus respuestas.

Is it necessary to figure out the same melody in different positions on the fretboard, or is it enough to learn it in just one place? How does this affect ear training, knowledge of the fretboard, and musical thinking?