Ear Sharpener uses an ear training method that is more effective than interval training. Read on or watch the video to find out how.

When you hear a melody, whether in your head or on the radio, and you want to be able to play that melody back on whatever your instrument is, the skill that you need is called “relative pitch”. The most popular method for improving one’s relative pitch is called “interval training”. Ear Sharpener uses an ear training method that is more effective than interval training.

With interval training, you hear two notes, either simultaneously or in sequence, and you have to say whether the interval you heard was for example a major 2nd, a minor 6th, a perfect 5th, etc.

Ear Sharpener takes a different approach. Every song that you hear has a tonal center. Ear Sharpener plays a chord progression that establishes a given tonal center; then it plays a note*, and you have to indicate what note you heard.

This gives you the same benefits of having practiced interval training, but you also get a sense of where the notes you’re hearing fall relative to a song’s tonal center. Ear Sharpener’s method could be called “scale-degree training”

*when you get good at identifying one note, you then move on to identifying two or more simultaneous notes.
Play Video
Ear Sharpener duration: 2:48

This is the method I used to train my ear when I was in high school. Except, every time I wanted to have a new sequence of random notes, I had to sit down at my piano with a tape recorder (in 1993!), and spend an hour and a half filling up the tape with

  • 1. I-IV-V-I (in C)
  • 2. Random note(s)
  • 3. Speaking the name of the random note

over and over again. Then I’d listen to the tape on the way to school, and try to guess the note between steps 2 and 3, and then of course step 3 would let me know if I was right or not. Ear Sharpener automates this process.

Some hints:

  • * You can repeat the chord progression or the notes, but this will lower your score for that round.
  • * You can listen to any of the possible notes by holding down its button for one second.
  • * When you increase the number of notes you’re listening to, it’s okay to hum one of the notes in order to help you hear the other(s).

If you have questions or comments, please email info@earsharpener.com!