We’ve been keeping our eyes and ears open for interesting ear training links for you! Here’s what we found recently. As always, let us know if you have any to add!

Jump to:

• The most famous opening chord ever?
• Four levels of musical awareness
• 5 minutes to a better mix
• Free university course: Listening to Music
• What musical clichés do you know?

The most famous opening chord ever?

What’s the most famous opening chord of any song? One which would surely make the shortlist is the jangly guitar strum which opens The Beatles’ “A Hard Day’s Night”:

Site author Brad put us onto this great video explaining the sound of that oh-so-famous opening chord:

Four levels of musical awareness

In a segment from his bass masterclass, Anthony Wellington talks about the four levels of musical awareness which you progress through as you learn:
Click to read the rest…

Here are a few things you might have missed in the world of aural skills development and ear training lately. Let us know if you have any to add!

Jump to:

• Halloween Sound Design Contest
• Theta Music Marks 1 Year With a Major Update
• Expert learning advice from the Dallas School of Music
• Black keys improvisation (video)
• Win an app with the Discover, Learn, Play blog

Halloween Sound Design Contest

It’s October, and you know what that means… Halloween!

The Designing Sound website put us onto this exciting and fun contest from

Prizes include a copy of SONOPEDIA 2.0 from Blastwave FX, an autographed set of limited edition Hollywood-is-Dead poster prints from Matt Busch, an autographed copy of the Halloween 4 Soundtrack by Alan Howarth and an autographed copy of “The Sound Effects Bible” by Ric Viers.

Read the full contest information at BlastwaveFX.com. And then what are you waiting for?

If you need a little help getting spooky, keep an eye on EasyEarTraining.com over the next few weeks……

Theta Music Marks 1 Year With a Major Update

About a year ago we covered the launch of Theta Music Trainer, a new suite of online games designed to make ear training fun. We couldn’t agree more with the spirit and goals of Theta Music’s games, so we’re delighted to congratulate them on a successful first year – and the major update they’ve just released. Check out the video below for a tour of the training on offer and the new additions to the Theta Music programme:

Click to read the rest…

In the last Music & Life article we looked at the role of songs in children’s musical development, and the many ways songs can be integrated into a child’s life. We’ve also looked at how lullabies help your child’s musical appreciation. Today we’re releasing two free songs which can help develop your child’s aural skills!

Music & Life author Sabrina Peña Young has composed these songs to help children learn about different intervals and rhythms.

Froggy Interval Hop

Here’s a fun little song which runs through major scale intervals from a second up to a fifth. With younger children you don’t need to worry about the interval names, but just singing the song will help them get used to different melodic leaps. Older children can use the song to help them learn the sound of each interval!
Click to read the rest…