Learning to recognize intervals is an important part of any musician’s development. Guitarists who play by ear should be especially interested in developing their aural skills so that they can recognize musical elements such as intervals in harmonies and melodies. For players of improvised forms like jazz a good ear is critical for improvising as well. This article reviews intervals on the guitar and teaches a very simple method for learning and identifying them.

Review of Intervals

Musical intervals measure the distance between any two pitches. We identify intervals by their size and quality. We determine the size of an interval simply by counting from one pitch name to the other. For example, the interval from the sixth string, E, to the fifth string A, is a fourth: E F G A, one two three four.

The quality of an interval, whether ‘perfect’, ‘major’, ‘minor’, ‘diminished’ or ‘augmented’, is a refinement of its size. Both an interval’s size and quality make up its unique sound: a major third sounds different than a minor third.

For the guitarist, the smallest musical distance is one fret. This distance is called a semitone. We can list the most common intervals by their number of semitones or frets:

How To Practice Intervals On The Guitar

Shortly we will review how to play some of these intervals on the guitar, but first we can take a peek at a simple method for learning how they sound. This method really involves two parts. We first want to learn how to produce an interval, and then we want to be able to recognize it.

First we play the interval we wish to learn, and sing it back. You can sing using a neutral syllable like la or ta. Below is a minor second. Play it and sing it back:

Minor Second

Minor Second Example

We repeat this play and sing back process for several different minor seconds across the guitar:

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Ever since we launched our interval training app for iPhone and iPod, RelativePitch, we’ve had people asking us for an app to learn chords in the same way. Well, the wait is over!

Today we’re releasing a new ear training iOS app, called Chordelia: Triad Tutor, which is designed to get you up to speed with the most important types of chord in a fun, simple way.

Chordelia: Triad Tutor teaches the four core triad chords. If you’ve studied our Pitch & Harmony series you’ll know that triads are three-note chords, and the four types of triad form the basis of all commonly-used chords in Western music. Learning to recognise triads is an essential fundamental part of any musician’s ear training.

Focus on the fundamentals

It’s easy when studying harmony to get carried away with the wide variety of weird and wonderful chords you find in music – suspended chords, sixth chords, the many types of seventh chord, extended chords… Not to mention the guitarist’s favourite: power chords. On top of all that you’ve got block chords, arpeggiated chords, chord inversions, chord voicings – and then on to cadences and chord progressions!

Overwhelmed yet?

Making ear training easy is our goal around here, and so with our first chord training app, we decided to follow the KISS principle and keep things simple.

Rather than throwing every possible type of chord (and chord-related skill) at you at once, Chordelia: Triad Tutor teaches just the four types of triad chord. You start off by learning to tell the four types apart, when they’re “spelled out” as arpeggios, one note at a time. Then, as you progress, you learn to recognise them as “block chords”, with all the notes played together. Finally you can really challenge yourself by learning to recognise the chords in different inversions, and even try to tell which inversion it is!

Why train with Chordelia: Triad Tutor

Chords are fundamental to harmony, and harmony is essential to all but the simplest of music. Learning to understand, appreciate and recognise particular types of chord is a core part of any musician’s development – and as a bonus, it’s a great way to enhance your enjoyment of the music you listen to every day!

Even experienced musicians can struggle with chords if they haven’t spent time practising. Was that a major or minor chord? Sounds simple, but put in a musical context, it can be frustratingly hard to tell! Wouldn’t it be great to never have to worry about that kind of fundamental distinction again?

After a few short sessions with Chordelia you’ll find you can easily recognise major, minor, augmented and diminished triads when you hear them in music. What’s more, you’ll have a solid basis for recognising more complex chords too, since these are all based on triads (with notes added, removed or altered).

Once you’ve studied further with Chordelia you will know these triads back-to-front and inside-out, recognise them immediately and always be able to confidently say which type and inversion is being used.

What about all that theory?

There’s a vast body of music theory which deals with harmony – and again, it tends to be overwhelming to all but the most academic of musicians.

Fortunately there’s not much you actually need to know to understand harmonies aurally and develop the skills mentioned above. In fact, if you’ve already been training with RelativePitch or reading about intervals and chords on this site, you’re halfway there!

Chordelia: Triad Tutor features detailed, illustrated lessons to introduce you to all the key concepts, and make sure you know enough theory to develop your understanding of triad chords. You’ll learn what triads are, how they’re constructed, and why they sound the way they do. Later you’ll find out about triad inversions, and the more advanced types of chord built on triads.

You’ll get benefit from any previous music theory or interval training you’ve done, but neither is essential: the app teaches you everything you need to know.

When can you get started?

If you have an iPhone or iPod, you can download Chordelia: Triad Tutor from the App Store today!

LAUNCH SPECIAL: For one week only, get Chordelia: Triad Tutor for just $1.99! That’s 50% Off the usual price of $3.99!

We’re excited to launch this new app, and help musicians learn to recognise chords in the same way RelativePitch has taught thousands to recognise intervals!

As always, we’d love to hear what you think, especially if you’ve tried the app. Please leave a comment below, or email us with your thoughts.

Our newsletter subscribers got a free preview copy of the app earlier this week. Want to be tipped off to future special offers? Sign up for our newsletter for free!

There’s an old joke that asks:

“What’s the difference between a rock guitarist and a jazz guitarist?”

Answer:

That may be true, but if you want a stone cold hit you need to write a four chord song. Don’t believe me? Check out “The Four Chord Song” by Australian comedy rock band Axis of Awesome.

Well-trained ears may even pick out what the four chords are (guitarists: no peeking at Lee’s left hand!)

Warning: This video contains a few F bombs if you are offended by such things or you want to play it to youngsters please use the following link: Kid-friendly version

It turns out that the four magical chords are E, B, C# minor and A. But with so many chords to choose from, why did dozens of hit songs end up with the same four chords?

At first glance, it seems strange that so many songs should have the same chords. After all, with 12 notes to choose from, and a choice of major or minor, there should be thousands of pleasant-sounding chord progressions and we should never need to repeat ourselves. Unfortunately for budding songwriters, the odds are that picking four chords at random will result in something that sounds horrible. So what are the secrets behind those four magical chords? To find an answer we need to understand where chords come from.
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