How to use
1 Overview
The smartChord Ear Trainer helps you sharpen your musical ear — the skill every musician needs to identify intervals, notes, chords, scales and scale degrees just by listening. Whether you want to play by ear, transcribe songs, improvise more confidently, or simply become a better-rounded musician, regular ear training is the fastest way to get there.
The Ear Trainer is fully integrated into smartChord: you can practice with the sound of more than 100 instruments, answer on a fretboard, a list or a piano, track your progress in statistics, and sync your quizzes and results across all your devices.
For the official tool description and a full feature list, see the Ear Trainer Overview on smartchord.de.
Train your ear anywhere — smartChord turns everyday moments into practice time.
2 Part of the smartChord Toolbox
The Ear Trainer is one of many tools inside smartChord. Open the main menu and choose Tools to see the full toolbox — Ear Trainer sits next to Fretboard Trainer, Metronome, Tuner, Chord Finder and many more, so you can combine ear training with the rest of your practice routine without switching apps.
Ear Trainer inside the smartChord toolbox.
3 Creating Your First Quiz
Ear training in smartChord is organized around quizzes. A quiz defines what you want to practice (for example “minor intervals”), which instrument it is played on, and how you want to answer. When you start the Ear Trainer for the first time the quiz list is empty — Use the menu ‘Folder -> New’ to create your first quiz.
Empty quiz list on first launch.
The create-quiz form.
4 Quiz Types
The Ear Trainer offers five quiz types. Each one targets a different ear-training skill, and you can create as many quizzes of each type as you like.
4.1 The five types
- Intervals — two notes are played, you identify the interval (e.g. minor third, perfect fifth).
- Notes — a single note is played, you identify which note it is.
- Chords — a chord is played (block or arpeggiated), you identify type and root.
- Scales — a scale is played up/down, you identify which scale it is.
- Scale Degrees — after a tonal reference is played you identify the scale degree of a target note.
Pick a quiz type when creating a new quiz.
5 Defining the Scope
After choosing a quiz type you define exactly what should be asked. For an interval quiz that means picking the intervals you want to train; for a chord quiz you pick chord types and roots; for a scale quiz the scales. This keeps practice focused and lets you build up difficulty step by step.
Choose which intervals the quiz should contain.
Quiz fully configured and ready to save.
6 Answer Views
smartChord lets you choose how you answer. The same question can be answered on a fretboard, from a list, or on a piano keyboard — pick whatever matches your instrument and your mental model of music.
6.1 Available views
- Fretboard — ideal for guitar, bass, ukulele and other stringed instruments.
- List — neutral text list of all possible answers, works for every quiz type.
- Piano — a piano keyboard, great for keyboard players and for thinking in note names.
The answer view is set per quiz, so you can have one quiz that trains the same scope with the fretboard view and another one with the piano view — a great way to cross-check your understanding.
7 Playing a Game
Open a saved quiz and smartChord shows the start screen. Tap Play and the first question is played. Listen as often as you need to, then tap your answer. Feedback is instant.
7.1 The game flow
- Open the quiz from the list.
- Tap Play to hear the first question.
- Replay the sound as often as you need.
- Tap your answer on the fretboard, list or piano.
- See instant feedback — correct or wrong, with the right answer shown.
- Continue until all questions of the round are done.
Quiz ready — tap Play to start.
An interval question.
7.2 Correct and wrong answers
A correct answer is marked in green; a wrong answer is marked in red and the correct one is highlighted, so you always walk away knowing what the right answer would have been.
Correct answer — minor third.
Correct answer — minor sixth.
Wrong answer — the correct one is highlighted.
8 Game Summary
At the end of every round the Ear Trainer shows a summary screen with your score, the number of correct and wrong answers, and a star rating. This makes every practice session feel like a small game — and gives you an immediate goal: beat your previous result.
Round summary with score and star rating.
9 Saving and Reusing Your Quizzes
Every quiz you create is saved automatically and appears in the quiz list. From there you can start it, edit its scope, duplicate it as a starting point for a new quiz, or delete it.
Because saved quizzes are part of your smartChord profile, they are also available on every other device where you use smartChord — see the Ear Trainer Overview for the cross-device sync behaviour.
Your saved quizzes are ready to be played again.
10 Tracking Your Progress with Statistics
Ear training only pays off if you do it regularly and track your progress. smartChord records every answer you give and offers three complementary statistics views, so you can see where you are strong, where you still struggle, and how you improve over time.
10.1 Summary view
The summary shows the total number of correct and wrong answers and your overall accuracy — a quick health check for your current practice streak.
Overall accuracy at a glance.
10.2 Distribution view
The distribution view breaks results down by item — per interval, per chord, per scale — so you instantly see which questions you answer reliably and which ones still trip you up.
Right vs. wrong answers per item.
10.3 Progress chart
The progress chart plots your accuracy over time, so you can watch your ear improve week by week — the most motivating view of them all.
Accuracy over time — watch your ear improve.
“Don’t just hear music, understand it. Ear training is the path to a deeper appreciation of every note.”
