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Piano ear training: hear a tune, play it back

This is one exercise, done well. The page plays a short tune on a grand piano. You find the same tune on the keys. That is the whole skill of playing by ear, cut down to a size you can practise in three minutes: hear it, hold it in your head, and put it under your fingers. It is free and there is nothing to install or sign up for.

How it works

1. Listen Press Start and the page plays a tune of two to five notes. One dot blinks for each note, so you know how many there are. In the early levels the key it starts on is lit.
2. Play it back Find the tune on the keys. A right key turns green and a dot fills in. A wrong key turns red and you’re told whether you were too high or too low. You carry on from the same note.
3. See the shape When you have it, the dots move to show how the tune rose and fell, with the note names on them. Then the next tune plays.

A round is ten tunes. A tune you play back with no wrong key, and without Show me, counts as first go, and your first goes earn the stars: nine or ten for three stars, seven or eight for two, five or six for one. The tunes are made up fresh every time, so there is nothing to memorise.

You can hear a tune as many times as you like: press Hear it again or the space bar. If you’re properly stuck, Show me plays it once more and lights each key, then you play it yourself.

How to listen

• Hear the shape first. Before you think about which keys, ask one question: did it go up, go down, or stay where it was?
• Step or skip? A step is the key next door. A skip jumps over one. They sound different, and telling them apart is most of what Levels 4 and 5 are for.
• Sing it before you play it. Hum the tune back, out loud or in your head. If you can sing it, your ear already has it and all that’s left is finding the keys.
• Decide, then press. Pick the key you think it is before you touch anything. Hunting up and down the keyboard until something sounds right trains your fingers to hunt, not your ear to hear.
• Look away while it plays. Watch the wall, not the keyboard. Your ears work better when your eyes aren’t guessing for them.

The twelve levels

The levels follow the same order as our beginner sheet music, so the notes you hear are the notes you are learning to read.

• Levels 1 to 6: C position, first note shown. The right thumb sits on middle C and the five fingers cover C, D, E, F and G. You start with two notes on three keys (same, a step up or a step down) and finish with five-note tunes that leap anywhere in the hand. The first key is always lit, so your job is to hear where the tune goes from there.
• Levels 7 to 10: new notes and new places. Notes below middle C, then the whole octave up to the next C, then two new hand positions that each bring in one black key: D position with F sharp, and F position with B flat.
• Levels 11 and 12: no first note. The page plays a C chord so you know where home is, then the tune. No key is lit. You find the first note by ear as well, which is what playing by ear really asks of you.

The keys a level doesn’t use are greyed out. New to the hand position? Read C position explained first.

Five minutes a day

1. One round at your level. Ten tunes, about three minutes.
2. Go back over the ones you missed. When a tune catches you out, hear it again and sing it before you move on.
3. Move up on two stars. Seven first goes out of ten means you are ready for the next level. Fewer than five means the level below still has something to teach you, and there is no shame in going back to it.

A few minutes most days does more for your ear than an hour once a week. Do a round before you start your normal practice, while your ears are fresh.

What you need

• Nothing but this page to begin with. Click or touch the keys on screen, or use the computer keyboard: Q W E R T Y U I are the white keys from middle C up to the next C, and the number keys above them are the black keys.
• A digital piano or MIDI keyboard is better, because your hands learn the real distances. Plug it into the computer with a USB cable and press Connect your piano. It works in Chrome, Edge and Firefox on a computer, and Chrome on Android. An older keyboard with round MIDI sockets needs a USB MIDI interface: see connecting an older keyboard.
• Headphones or decent speakers. A phone speaker held at arm’s length makes low notes hard to tell apart.

Questions and answers

🔒 Runs entirely in your browser: nothing you play is uploaded and no account is needed.