how to improve your musical ear.

umm what i was wonderin was if anyone had any ideas on how to improve your musical ear. for instance i read something that said play a note then attempt to sing a note a certain inteval above it, then see if you are correct. anyone else got any tips, like if you hear a chord how to know exactly what it is, eg Aminor 7th.

any help would be apreciated

When I try to distinguish chords, I follow these steps when practicing.

1. Determine if it is Major, Minor, or Weird ( Weird being either Diminished or Augmented )

2. How many different notes can you hear in the chord? 3, 4, 5...etc.

3. Listen to the bass note and try to hear where its "tendancy" to resolve is...aka the leading tone always sounds like it wants to resolve to tonic. ( this is useful for discerning inversions of chords ).

Hope this helps.

thanks that was helpful

check out www.musictheory.net and www.teoria.com for some free ear training exercises.

Mike.

thanks thats really cool, do you know if there is any way of limiting the intervals to easy ones so i can start with the easy ones

I cant think of a better way of improving your musical ear than really studying the Keys, note structure, phrases, and other quirks of the music you really get inspiration from. We are all parasites in some form on the music that came before us. If you here something that really puts a chill down your spine, boy thats what I would study to improve my musical ear.