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App or technique for chord ear training…
Over the past few years I’ve definitely got way better at notes and phrase recognition when listening to music and jamming with mates. But I still really struggle with chords, and especially with jamming, but also learning tunes by ear, I’d kind to be able to identify chords better and ideally quickly for jamming (generally guitar but also synth / keys etc)
Are there any particular apps or just techniques that are good for that? Been looking at Tenuto and a couple of others, searched the forum a few times for the subject but didn’t turn up any threads…
Cheers
Comments
I really enjoy Tonality: Music Theory, it has a really good UI with so much information and an interactable piano and guitar where you can press to hear the note/chord/scale or slide your finger to hear the chord note by note. So for example the chords menu is split into two halves, left where you can search chords by just selecting the keys on the piano or selecting the chord by note/quality/tone (Dm6 for example). On this selection screen you can already see how the chord is played in piano and some variations of it on guitar. Then when you select the note it'll be shown on the right halve of the screen with multiple variations, how it looks on the staff, theory behind it like the notes it has, the degrees (1,3,5), the intervals, a graph/neural grid I know nothing about, multiple variations on the guitar, related scales....
Then you also have a circle of fifths, some awesome MIDI tools like chord pads and live chord recogniser (so you can see what note/chord you play in real time, like synthesia)...
And as you requested, there's also the Ear training menu with a whole part dedicated to chords and you can even build your own exercises. All the built in exercises for chords: major and minor, diminished and augmented, basic triads, all triads, triads and sevenths, diminished and half-dimished sevenths, advanced sevenths.
I couldn't recommend this app more really.
The Sonofield Ear Training App, along with all the accompany resources and videos, is the best ear training app I've come across. The creator is Max Konyi, and you can find his youtube channel ear training playlist below, if you click on the 'Watch on Youtube' link.
His website is also a great resource. He has a recent article comparing ear training apps here:
https://sonofield.com/blog/best-ear-training-apps-2026
For best Chord Training app he chose the free iOS app, Chet: https://www.ensemble-education.com/chet
I trust that Max has a better understanding of good ear training apps than just about anyone else, so I'd guess it would be worthwhile to try Chet. https://www.ensemble-education.com/chet
Also, check out his own app, Sonofield, which is an excellent piece of work. It's expensive for an ear training app (the pro version is $15) but it feels like quality and may be the best way out there to train your ears.
@hes
Thank you, because it’s 6 months or more now that I use Sonofield nearly every day, but i did not know about Max or his YT channel.
I’m in the same boat as @Krupa , so thanks to the OP for bringing this specific topic up.
I just DLd Chet.
I use to use Earmaster, and got ok with most intervals, so when i confidently first started using Sonofield, i learned that I actually sucked. Doing it against a drone is really different. But I’ve gotten so much better since then. I still use earmaster for other stuff at times. They do chords too, but I’m curious to see how Chet differs.
Chet is fun, my nephew who’s really into music aced it when he was like 12 or something, but I’m nowhere near
Just chords.
https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/earwizard/id599466971
Some great stuff in here thanks folks 🙌
The traditional method is to learn a lot of songs by ear from recordings. At first it is very difficult, but as you begin to recognize common patterns it quickly gets a lot easier. Some things you just cannot farm out to an app.
Very often learning the bass line first makes figuring out the chords much easier.
I agree with this. Sure, learning relative pitch is very useful. But, knowing the different ‘flavours’, like major=happy, minor=sad, or the augmented dissonance of Chuck Berry’s school bell ringing at the beginning of ‘School Days’, or the mysterious tension made by the chord change Eb to Bm in Puccini’s ‘Nessun Dorma’. These sounds are intuitively recognisable through familiarity and emotion. Seems more relatable than drilling intervals with no context. On the other hand I will be checking out the above apps, Sonofield looks interesting. I do have Harmonomics, but haven't tried it - was bundled with my favourite metronome app, Metronomics.
Thanks for starting the thread @Krupa, good reading.
Funnily enough @pbelgium it was a Chuck Berry b side on a seven inch I picked up in the charity shop the other day that spurred me to think about the chord recognition thing (Liverpool drive being the flip to No particular place to go in this instance)
Not specifically ear training - more general theory but with massive quantities of examples of chord progressions (free). This site is one of my favorites for learning to hear chord progressions in popular music. They offer interactive books, and music theory training app, but I’ve only tried the demo. They also have a YouTube channel, which I have found very helpful. Also, if anyone is interested in ear training YT channels, I can share a few of my faves there too.
https://hooktheory.com/theorytab/index/
Yes, there are drills where you can just drill intervals with no context, but there are also other options of using them in more functional contexts.
Also, it doesn’t have to be one or the other, ie apps vs listening and transcribing music. Some apps, like the one @hes suggested, have musical examples and also known songs using different instruments from example to example. That’s what i was currently lacking. The other apps do have different instruments to choose from, but they are static fonts that are lifelessly played, which can be good for tackling fundamental weak spots, but the chosen instruments remains until you go change it in settings again. So far i like Chet cause although cheezy sounding, the example questions constantly change instruments.
I personally do a handful of different things
at any given time. Sometimes i just noodle around in a minor or maj scale until i find a well-known phrase and then play that through all 12 keys. That’s just one example of putting some theory i learned into practice.
If you’re already well versed with your theory, ears, play keys, and lean towards jazz, Mapping Tonal Harmony Pro seems worth checking out. I’d like to get there eventually.
@GeoTony , a while back i think you mentioned having transcribed Bird solos. What app helped you with that? 😃
The relative pitch ear training course by David Berger is incredible..Only available on cd but it can’t be beat..
Yeah, that’s the one that started it all for me. I still check the Internet about once a year to see if it’s been digitized. And it’s David Lucas Burge.
Not me I don’t think @Blipsford_Baubie 🤔
I have transcribed pieces but just a painful process of repeated listening and trying to play, aided by apps that can slow down audio or video without changing the pitch.
Only app that I use that vaguely fits the thread is Solo which listens to your playing while you try and get the correct intervals in chords. Can’t say I’ve had much joy with it though ☹️
So do I, lol
When I did that kind of stuff, my main apps were a record player, paper and pencil, and my big toe. (I used my toe to stop and start the record via friction against the edge.)
That’s so awesome. Brings back fond memories of the theory teacher from school who told the class of similar stories. He really tried, in his own way, to emphasize the importance of developing the ear. Just one example, if a student couldn’t recognize an interval, or some comparison, he’d ask if they had beer with their cereal in the morning. Really condescending and serious, but i wish i could do it again with my current experience.
Jazz is a great way to learn chords. Get Hal Leonard Guitar Method – Jazz Guitar
and work through it with the accompaniment tracks. You’ll learn a boatload of scales, chord shapes/phrasings, solos, and theory. Practicing with the tracks helps because it tells you the key, why the chords are used in that songs, how to pick chords for a key, etc. Learning all that will internalize how it all fits together in the structure of a song both in theory and practice. It’s got tabs and standard notation along with chord charts.
https://www.halleonard.com/product/695359/hal-leonard-guitar-method-jazz-guitar