Hear the Quality of Any Chord
Chord quality ear training is learning to hear a chord's character, major, minor, diminished or augmented, without seeing the notes. It is the difference between hearing that a song "went to a sad chord" and knowing it moved to a minor. This is the skill that lets you follow, and eventually predict, where a song's harmony is going.
Hear the quality, then play it back
Hear a chord, name its quality, play it back, get scored. No download, no signup. MIDI keyboard or microphone.
▶ Try ChordRunner Free Free in the browser - major, minor, dim, aug by ear.The four triad qualities
Every basic chord is one of four colours. Major sounds bright and resolved, the default happy chord. Minor sounds darker and more serious, and the only thing separating it from major is one note, the third, dropped a half step. Diminished is tense and anxious, like something is about to happen. Augmented is dreamy and hovering, unable to settle. Learn to hear those four moods and you can label most of the chords in popular music.
Try it: hear a chord, name its quality
Press play, listen, then pick the quality. Sound needs a tap first (browsers block autoplay).
Adding 7ths to the mix
Once the four triads are easy, the next layer is seventh quality. A dominant 7th sounds tense and bluesy, a major 7th sounds lush and calm, and a minor 7th sounds smooth and mellow. These are harder because the difference lives in a single upper note, which is exactly why ear training on them pays off: it is the level most self-taught players never reach, and the one that unlocks jazz and soul.
Why hearing quality matters
Chord quality is the fastest, most portable thing to hear, because you do not need to know the exact chord to follow a song, only its colour. Catch the moods, major to minor to that tense diminished passing chord, and you can chart a song by ear without naming a single note. Pair this with interval ear training below the chords and chord recognition on your instrument, and the three skills lock together.
Practise chord quality in the game
The quiz above asks you to name a quality; ChordRunner's Ear Training asks you to reproduce it. You hear a chord and play it back on your MIDI keyboard or into your microphone, and the chord recognition engine checks what you played. Building the chord yourself, rather than ticking a box, is what turns a recognised colour into one your hands can find instantly. Free in the browser, nothing to install.
Common questions
What is chord quality ear training?
Chord quality ear training is learning to hear whether a chord is major, minor, diminished or augmented, and later whether a seventh is dominant, major or minor. It is about the chord's mood and colour, not its exact notes, and it is what lets you follow a song's harmony by ear.
How do I tell major from minor by ear?
Listen to the third. A major chord has a bright, happy quality; a minor chord sounds darker and sadder. The only difference between them is one note, the third, moving a half step, so training your ear on that single change is the fastest route to reliable recognition.
What chord qualities should I learn first?
Start with major versus minor, the two you meet most. Then add diminished (tense and unstable) and augmented (dreamy and hovering). Once the four triad qualities are solid, move on to sevenths: dominant, major and minor, which colour the same triads differently.
How does ChordRunner train chord quality by ear?
In Ear Training you hear a chord and play it back on your instrument, and the chord recognition engine checks what you played from MIDI or your microphone. Reproducing the chord, rather than picking its name from a list, is what builds real recall of each quality.