Welcome to Aural Skills!
This is the place where you can learn to develop you ear through interval and chord recognition. In my opinion, a strong ear is just as essential as a deep harmonic understanding. If we want to exist in the moment when we improvise, we cannot be bogged down by chords and scales and must be able to interact instantaneously with those around us. Developing our aural skills is at the centre of this. It’s also at the centre of transcription skills, hearing harmony and picking out those extra sweet extensions at the perfect moment!
Take your time, this stuff is not easy and to do it properly takes a lot of dedication.
Think you’ve got it? Test yourself….
Can you tell what interval has just been played, simply by hearing it?
Interval recognition is an incredibly important skill for any aspiring jazz musician. It can help you to transfer those ideas from your mind to your instrument and learn repertoire in the true, aural jazz tradition.
Ascending to a 3rd
Descending to a 3rd
Ascending to a 5th
Descending to a 5th
Ascending to an Octave
NEW: Mixed octave 1
Descending to an Octave
NEW: Mixed octave 2
Have some fun embodying the sounds:
If you’re feeling comfortable with your intervals, it’s time to learn how to hear chords…
We’re going to start with the three most common chord types. These are our chords from the Major ii V I (the Major 7, Dominant 7 and Minor 7).