If you’re working on chord ear training, an effective approach to learning to recognise chord types (e.g. major, minor, diminished, augmented) is to practice identifying them by ear from audio examples. We’ve just added a full set of triad chord examples to our ear training exercises page.
Learn to recognise triad chords
Just like our interval exercises, these triad exercises are split into “Training Exercises” and “Test” tracks which you can use to first train your ear for the different types, and then test your ability to tell them apart. We’ve created tracks covering all four types of triad, and different combinations. For each set of exercises you’ll find tracks for the root position and each inversion of the chords.
Download these triad exercises and listen later
You don’t need to be online to use these exercises. Each set of tracks is also available as a download so you can load them onto your phone, MP3 player, laptop, or tablet, and listen whenever’s convenient. You can also download just the specific tracks you’re working on and create your own set of exercise tracks perfectly tailored to you.
Triad recognition lessons
We’ve arranged the sets of exercises in a sensible order, but these aren’t full-on tutorials. You should start by reading these two articles which set the scene for chord ear training, and suggest a process for building up your ability to recognise chords:
Get clear on what chord ear training means and how it can help you in your musical life, in “What is chord ear training and what can it do for you”.
Read about the different types of chord you can learn and how to plan your chord ear training in “How To: Chord Types”.
You can then put this training plan into action using the triad exercises (or the Triad Tutor iOS app)
We hope you’ll find these free chord ear training exercises useful. If you’d like to be notified when we make more exercises available for seventh chords, chord progressions, and more, just enter your details below:
