Can you HEAR the difference between major and minor? (ear training for beginners)

If you want to learn how to play all your favorite songs without tabs or watching videos online… then you are going to need to develop some basic ear training skills.

Just like playing your instrument, you have to train your fingers to go to the correct strings and make the chords on the beat.

You need to culture your ear to accurately process the sounds you hear in music. You see most untrained ears when they hear music it’s like watching a fuzzy old television. Everything is just blurred and messy. 

But once you start building up your ear from scratch. That’s when you start to develop a crisp and clear picture in your mind of the sounds you are hearing. 

One of the skills you will need to develop is chord quality recognition.

This lets you figure out…

How To Tell If A Chord Is Major Or Minor 

Have you ever been frustrated playing your guitar with a song trying to figure this out? 

Not knowing if you are hearing a major chord, a minor chord, or perhaps something more mysterious.

And going through the agony of hunting and pecking through every note on your fretboard is a sure way to end up frustrated and miserable. In fact, if you’re using this approach. 

You’re NOT improving your ear. Despite what many fake goo-roos online will tell you. Eventually, after being completely overcome with frustration many players think they don’t have an ear for music. 

Which is just a myth. In fact, if you can feel the music then you have inner talents that can potentially come out with proper ear training.

An easy exercise to try to start opening your ear is by humming, whistling, or lightly singing specific notes in the chord.

Beginning with…

The Root Note

The root note of the chord has a strong sensation. First, give yourself the note, and match the pitch with your voice. Then practice singing that note while you play the chord on your instrument. 

Listen for how that note is the center of the chord, it’s the foundation.

From there try moving on to the…

Fifth Of The Chord

Now sing the fifth of the chord. First, give yourself the note, and match the pitch with your voice. Then practice singing that note while you play the chord on your instrument. 

A major and a minor chord both have this perfect fifth interval in the chord, so at this point, this sound in your head (the root and the fifth) could become either a major or a minor chord. It’s not until we bring in the…

Major Third Of The Chord

That we start to hear the chord’s quality. The quality of the chord is what gives it its distinct sound and emotional character. First, give yourself the major third note, and match the pitch with your voice. Then practice singing that note while you play the full chord on your instrument. 

You have now started to get inside this chord and unlock the sound of it in your mind. Now let’s repeat this all one more time. But the second time, let’s use the…

Minor Third Of The Chord

Using the minor third of the chord changes the quality from major to minor. However, we still keep the other two notes in the chord creating a perfect fifth. This time, now give yourself the minor third pitch and match it with your voice. Then practice singing that note while you play the full chord on your instrument. 

Then if you’re feeling really daring try singing all the notes in order from the lowest note to the highest note and back down. Repeat this on different chords and you will start to engrain the sound of a major chord into your ear, and a minor chord.

This means you’ll never get stuck wondering which it is in your favorite songs. 

Keep practicing and if you want to be able to figure out all the notes and chords to your favorite songs…get your hands on my free ear training cheat sheet PDF right here now:

Jon MacLennan