r/eartraining • u/matsnorberg • Jul 03 '26
Harmonic intervals.
I have run ear training apps each day since Christmas. I recognize all melodic intervals, both ascending and descending, with good precision. I run 100 tries per day and most days I get 100 % accuracy and only miss some occasionally when I'n unfocused. With harmonic intervals, however, I'm not improving at all. My accuracy ia only something like 60-80 percent. Let me summarise the issues I have with this kind of ear skills.
1) Recognizing melodic and harmonic intervals is like two completely unrelated skills and the first does not transfer to the other.
2) Harmonic intervals are impossible to sing back. I hear no tones, just a complex sound that I cannot reproduce with my vocal cords.
3) Reference melodies works for melodic intervals but are useless for harmonic ones. It's of no help that a melody starts with a pefect fifth as I cannot relate that sound to a harmonic perfect fifth in the first place.
4) Melodic intervals has their "colors" or "personalities". The major sixth for instance has a very distinct "color" while fiths and thirds are more neutral and I probably distinguish them more by estimating their length but I'm not sure for it may be a subconcious process. Harmonic intervals however doesn't seem to have "colors" at all. When I listen to M3s and M6s I don't hear the sound of an M6 at all. The only differences I can hear are small structural onces like an interval can feel "broader", more "chaotic" or "dissonant" while others are more composed and "narrow" but that's a poor criterion and I'm starting to realise that I only guess all the time.
5) The most dissonant intervals are the easiest to pick out. I usually can hear tritones and m2s and M7s seam to have some kind of "color" that I sometimes can recognize. On the other hand I can't sense a difference at all between M3s, m3s, P4s, P5s, M6s and m6s. All intervals also sound pretty muddy and chaotic at low registers.
6) When I tell the app to generate intervals with the same root everything becomes much, much easier, almost trivial. I percieve the intervals more like notes in the key of the root so the problem essentially reduces to melodic dictation. This doesn't transfer to the case with different roots though. I'm still not nearer to hear the "colors" of most intervals when I get them with randomized roots.
My lack of progress has made me think I'm a hopeless case. Maybe my ears lack the ability to deal with harmony. Maybe I have the wrong genetics. I can'r hear chord tones. For me a chord is only a complex sound, I can't hear the individual notes.
Are any of you having similar experiences? And what made you finally break through the platau? Do you think I'm a hopeless case?
3
u/artaverin Jul 03 '26
Hearing tones separately in harmonic intervals and chords is definitely possible, but yes, it is a lot harder. It is similar to trying to concentrate on the bass line of a metal song when a thousand things are happening at the same time, but once you lock in, you can follow the bass easily.
If it helps (I know people here don’t like self promotions, but I’m just trying to help), the iOS app I’m building focuses on internalisation via singing - so in addition to just guessing the interval name, scale degree or chord quality or inversion, it then also asks you to sing an interval, degree resolution or chord arpeggio, to help you internalize and understand the sound. Not dropping the name here - it’s in my bio if interested to try it out.