Interactive aural skills quiz
Ear Training Test
Practice pitch direction, interval recognition, and note recognition with instant feedback and detailed results.
Test setup
Choose a focused listening exercise and difficulty.
Recent tests
Stored only in this browser tab.
Completed tests will appear here.
Performance
Live streak and mode breakdown.
Final test summary
Your completed test results.
Missed questions
No missed questions.
Ear Training Test
This ear training test helps you practice three specific listening skills: recognizing pitch direction, identifying melodic intervals, and naming individual notes.
Each test uses randomized sine-wave tones generated in your browser. You receive immediate feedback after every answer, including the correct response, the notes played, the interval name and abbreviation, and the semitone distance when relevant.
The tool tracks your score, accuracy, current streak, best streak, missed questions, and recent completed tests. It does not use a microphone or record your audio.
How to Use the Ear Training Test
- Choose Pitch direction, Interval recognition, or Note recognition.
- Select Easy, Medium, or Hard difficulty.
- Choose 5, 10, 15, or 20 questions.
- For two-note modes, choose Ascending, Descending, or Mixed direction.
- Adjust the volume.
- In note-recognition mode, decide whether to hear an A4 reference before each question.
- Select Start test.
- Listen, choose an answer, and select Submit answer.
- Review the feedback before moving to the next question.
You can replay the sound after submitting an answer. This makes the test useful for learning from mistakes rather than merely collecting a score.
Choose a Test Mode
| Mode | What you hear | What you identify |
|---|---|---|
| Pitch direction | Two sequential notes | Whether the second note moved up or down |
| Interval recognition | Two sequential notes | The melodic interval between them |
| Note recognition | One note, optionally preceded by A4 | The note’s pitch class |
These are focused aural-skills exercises. Larger ear-training platforms may also test chords, scales, rhythm, harmonic intervals, or keyboard responses, but those activities are outside this plugin. For example, musicTheory.net separates note, interval, scale, and chord ear training into distinct exercises, while Teoria includes melodic and harmonic interval options.
Pitch Direction
Pitch-direction questions ask whether the second note is higher or lower than the first.
The possible answers are:
- Ascending
- Descending
Perfect unison is excluded because two identical pitches do not move upward or downward. The interval size still depends on the selected difficulty.
This is the simplest mode because you do not need to name the notes or interval. It is a practical starting point before attempting interval identification.
Interval Recognition
Interval recognition plays two notes in sequence and asks you to identify the distance between them.
Answer buttons show both the full name and abbreviation, such as:
- Major third — M3
- Perfect fifth — P5
- Minor seventh — m7
- Perfect octave — P8
After submitting, the feedback displays the correct interval, its abbreviation, the notes played, and the number of semitones.
The notes are melodic rather than harmonic: they play one after the other, not simultaneously. This matches the standard melodic-interval format used by many online interval exercises.
Note Recognition
Note recognition plays one randomized note from octaves 3 through 5. You identify the note name without identifying its octave.
When the reference option is enabled, the test first plays A4 at 440 Hz, followed by the question note. The reference gives you a known pitch from which to judge the target.
This is not a verified perfect-pitch assessment. With the reference enabled, the exercise can also be approached through relative pitch by comparing the unknown note with A4.
How Difficulty Changes the Questions
Difficulty controls the interval and note pools.
| Difficulty | Interval pool | Note pool |
|---|---|---|
| Easy | P1, M3, P5, P8 | C, D, E, F, G, A, B |
| Medium | P1, M2, m3, M3, P4, P5, M6, P8 | Easy notes plus C♯, D♯, F♯ |
| Hard | Every interval from P1 through P8 | All 12 chromatic pitch classes |
In pitch-direction mode, P1 is removed from each interval pool.
Hard interval mode includes unison, minor and major seconds, minor and major thirds, perfect fourth, tritone, perfect fifth, minor and major sixths, minor and major sevenths, and octave. These are the standard simple intervals commonly included in interval-ear-training exercises.
Questions are randomized independently, so the same note or interval may appear more than once.
How the Audio Is Generated
The test generates sine-wave tones through the Web Audio API.
Each musical note is represented internally by a MIDI-style note number. Its frequency is calculated relative to A4:
frequency = 440 × 2^((MIDI note − 69) ÷ 12)
Question tones play for approximately 0.58 seconds. In two-note questions, the second tone begins about 0.75 seconds after the first.
When enabled, the A4 reference lasts approximately 0.55 seconds and plays before the note-recognition question.
The volume slider maps to an internal maximum gain of 0.28. Each tone uses a short fade-in of about 25 milliseconds and a fade-out of about 40 milliseconds to reduce playback clicks.
How Scoring and Feedback Work
Your score increases by one for every correct answer.
Accuracy is calculated from submitted questions:
accuracy = correct answers ÷ answered questions × 100
The current streak increases after each consecutive correct answer and resets to zero after an incorrect answer. Best streak records the longest correct run within the current test.
After submission:
- The correct answer is highlighted in green.
- A wrong selected answer is highlighted in red.
- The correct response is displayed.
- The played notes are named.
- Interval questions show the interval and semitone count.
- Replay remains available.
The performance cards show correct answers over attempts for Direction, Interval, and Note modes. Because one test uses only one selected mode, the other two cards remain at 0/0.
Final Results and Missed-Question Review
At the end of the test, the summary displays your final score and accuracy.
The missed-question review lists:
- The correct answer
- Your selected answer
- The notes played
- The interval abbreviation when applicable
This review is especially useful for identifying repeated confusion, such as mixing up major and minor thirds or hearing a descending interval as ascending.
The missed items are numbered in the order they appear in the review, not by their original question numbers.
Recent Test History
Completed tests are saved only after the final question.
Each history entry includes:
- Test mode
- Difficulty
- Score
- Accuracy
- Best streak
- Completion time
Up to eight completed tests are stored in sessionStorage. The history belongs to the current browser tab and is not permanent or synchronized across devices.
Selecting Clear history removes those stored summaries.
Practical Ear Training Strategy
Begin with Pitch direction on Easy difficulty. Move to Interval recognition once you can reliably hear upward and downward movement.
For interval practice, avoid increasing difficulty simply because you recognize one or two intervals. Stay with a smaller answer pool until your results are consistent. Ear-training guidance commonly recommends starting simply, practicing regularly, and increasing difficulty gradually rather than making sessions unnecessarily long.
Use the feedback actively:
- Replay incorrect questions.
- Compare the named notes.
- Check the semitone distance.
- Notice which interval pairs you confuse.
- Use short tests for focused repetition.
- Increase the number of questions when your accuracy becomes stable.
Note recognition is a different task from interval recognition. A high interval score does not necessarily mean you can name an isolated note, and a low note-recognition score does not erase progress in relative pitch.
What This Test Does Not Assess
This musical ear test does not include:
- Harmonic intervals
- Chords
- Scales
- Rhythms
- Melodic dictation
- Singing or microphone analysis
- Visual keyboard answers
- Custom interval selection
- Alternative tuning references
- Permanent user accounts
- Cross-device progress tracking
It also does not diagnose tone deafness or prove that someone has perfect pitch. A result reflects performance on the selected randomized exercise, not a medical or comprehensive musical assessment.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is an ear training test?
An ear training test asks you to identify musical information by listening rather than reading notation. This tool tests pitch movement, melodic intervals, and individual note names.
What is the difference between pitch direction and interval recognition?
Pitch direction asks only whether the second note moved higher or lower. Interval recognition asks you to name the exact musical distance between the two notes.
What is a semitone?
A semitone is the smallest interval between adjacent notes in the plugin’s equal-tempered system. Interval feedback shows how many semitones separate the two played notes.
What do ascending and descending intervals mean?
An ascending interval moves from a lower note to a higher note. A descending interval moves from a higher note to a lower note.
Why does note recognition play A4 first?
A4 provides a known 440 Hz reference before the unknown note. You can compare the target with that reference instead of relying entirely on memory for an isolated pitch.
Is this a perfect-pitch test?
No. The plugin includes note recognition, but it does not verify or diagnose perfect pitch. The optional A4 reference also allows the exercise to be approached through relative comparison.
How is accuracy calculated?
Accuracy is the number of correct answers divided by the number of submitted answers, multiplied by 100. It updates after each submitted question.
Can I replay a question?
Yes. After submitting an answer, you can replay the same generated notes while reviewing the correct answer and interval details.
Does a low score mean I am tone deaf?
No. A low score only reflects performance on that test mode, difficulty, and question set. The plugin is a practice quiz, not a hearing or medical diagnostic tool.
Does the test use my microphone?
No. All tones are generated locally through the browser’s Web Audio API. The plugin does not listen to, record, or upload microphone audio.