One of the areas which musicians must develop is their hearing; how they perceive the sounds they hear
and what those sounds mean to them in terms of terminology so that they can more quickly react to what they are hearing.
The following sections are now availible or soon to be availible at Guitar49's ear training bootcamp.
There are thousands of different ways in which tones can be combined to form chords. The most basic combinations are called triads as they only
have three different tones in them. In this subgroup of triads some of the most common are either major or
minor.
In order to learn to recognize major and minor triads you have to have a model on which to base your
judgement on. After this the only way to develop better recognition skills is by listening to isolated examples of chords and learning to
indentify their chord quality (major, minor etc...).
The models: (all the examples are in real audio format, so you do not have to download anything. To get a free real audio player click here)
The first four triads are all examples of major triads.click here
These four triads alternate between major and minor in this order -major-minor-major-minor. click here
Listen to these models before trying your ears on the next bunch. The examples: In the next examples you will hear one chord which is either major or minor.
By clicking on the major or minor link you will know if your choice was correct. Of course you have 50% chance of guessing the correct answer
but the next level is more difficult. The next five recordings are examples of either major, minor or some other chord (undefined). You now have only 33% chance of guessing the correct example. Chord Recognition augmented and diminished
Listen to the following examples of 4 diminished triads here
Listen to the following examples of 4 augmented triads here
Ready to try the augmented, diminished chord test? These are a lot harder to recognize than major and minor as they sort of sound the same.
Chord Recognition major, minor, augmented and diminished
This is the last test in the triad section and it combines all four types: major, minor, augmented and diminished.
There are no examples first as you have already heard the examples above.