Ear Training I - Root Position Major and Minor Triads

Ear training has become the central focus of my practice routine. In addition to exercises that keep my hands in shape, I try to do some kind of ear training every day. The goal of my ear-training practice generally is to develop my ability to hear harmony simultaneously with melody. The goal of this specific exercise is to identify the root of a triad and to recognize it as either major or minor. To identify the root of one chord, I compare it to the root of the previous chord. This develops my ability to perceive pitch melodically. To identify the chord as either major or minor, I make a judgment about the simultaneous character of the chord. This develops my ability to perceive pitch harmonically.

As with many other of my ear-training exercises, this exercise can be approached in two ways: first, by improvising along with the randomly generated chords and, second, by echoing the randomly generated chords. Each approach presents a unique challenge. Right now I tend to focus on the echoing approach as I find it more difficult.

You can download the code here. To use the code, simply open it in Supercollider, select the Language tab, and click ‘evaluate file’.