These are the basic chords that everyone should learn when getting to the intermediate stage of guitar playing. Overall, there are 20 audio tracks in this post for you to test yourself with and we end up with:
Level 3 then adds a new chord type to the list and so on… Level 2 introduces 7th chords alongside the Major and minor chords. Level 1 starts with just Major and minor so you need to be able to tell the difference between the two. e.g you need to be able to identify if it is a Major chord or a minor chord.Īt each level we will introduce one more chord type. Note, you don’t need to identify the actual chord – just the type of chord. This is how it works. On the mp3 below you will hear a short passage of music. The following test will all require you to listen to a short passage of music and using your experience, analyse it and aim for the correct answer. Today, we will look at one of those 6 aspects of aural testing I use and that will be chord I.D. It’s hard to do guitar ear training online but this test has you covered. It is similar to way RGT (with whom I am a registered tutor) do their aural testing in their graded exams, but I have tweaked and in my opinion improved upon that system to be more fun and more practical. I split aural testing up into 6 smaller parts: We now know why ear training and good aural skills is so good for us as musicians, so let’s test you! Know where you’re at with your playing with this fun test The best way to accurately and systematically test your ear is by using a test such as the one below I have created for you and it only take minutes to do. Testing your aural skills is very difficult to do on your own (but there are a few useful ways I’ll go into in a future post). Some have never even tried tuning the guitar by ‘ear’ and some have never tried working songs out for themselves – or have briefly and found it tough. I recommend you work on improving your aural skills daily and test your ears (by doing the following exercise and similar) at least weekly. In this day and age of tab sites and YouTube, most guitarists learn in parrot fashion, don’t work out songs for themselves and have ears they can’t rely on. In other words, a good set of lugs (a silly expression we use over here for ears) will help your guitar playing on a large and broad scale. (i.e. you or someone else else is slightly out of tune, or someone is playing the wrong chord, etc). you’ll be able to know when something isn’t quite right with the music.you’ll be able to remember passages of music better.you’ll be able to hear where notes are located on the fretboard before playing.you’ll find it much quicker to learn songs by ear.Just a handful of ear training benefits include:
Ear training is so important for your overall musicianship and is often neglected by a lot of guitarists.įirst of all, why should you be bothered about having good ‘aural skills’ or a ‘good set of musical ears’? There are multiple reasons why you want your aural skills to be great. Well, in this post that’s about to change.
Out of all the things I have written about here on my blog, one thing I haven’t given you much of so far is an ear training for guitar test… And specifically some fun ways to test your ‘ear’ with measurable results.