Short answer
For singers, the ear training that helps most links hearing to singing: sing a note back, hear it in your head before you sing, and learn intervals through songs you know. Listening-only drills help less than you'd think, because most off-key singers already hear pitch normally (Pfordresher and Brown, 2007). Add listening drills if you confuse higher and lower.
What is ear training for singers?
Ear training is practice that improves how well you hear and understand pitch, and for singers it should always end in singing. Teachers also call it aural skills. Three terms come up a lot:
- Relative pitch is hearing how notes relate: whether the next note goes up or down, and by how much. It's what lets you sing a tune starting on any note.
- Intervals are the distances between two notes, counted in semitones. A semitone is the gap between two neighbouring piano keys.
- Audiation is the music educator Edwin Gordon's term for hearing music in the mind with understanding (Gordon Institute for Music Learning). Singers usually call it inner hearing.
Instrument-style ear training asks you to name what you hear. Voice-first ear training asks you to hear it, then sing it, then check. The second is closer to what singing in tune actually needs.
Can ear training help me sing in tune?
Yes, if it includes singing. Listening skill and singing skill are related, but only loosely. In a 2021 analysis of 632 people who took an online singing test, Peter Pfordresher and Steven Demorest found that those with finer pitch discrimination tended to match pitch better, but the link was modest, a correlation of about 0.3 (Pfordresher and Demorest, 2021). And in two 2007 experiments, poor-pitch singers discriminated pitch as well as accurate singers did (Pfordresher and Brown, 2007). For most people, sharper listening on its own won't fix off-key singing.
Inner hearing looks more promising. People who reported more vivid auditory imagery sang a higher percentage of trials in tune, and their imagery scores didn't predict their pitch discrimination (Pfordresher and Halpern, 2013). That fits a simple idea: before you sing a note, you need a clear picture of it in your head. Ear training for singers should build that picture and then test it with your voice.
Check your listening first
Hear two notes and say whether the second went up or down. Listening only, about three minutes.
Six ear training exercises that help singers
Do them in this order. The first three train the link from ear to voice; the last three add structure.
- Sing-back. Hear one note, sing it back, check it on a pitch display or a recording. This is the core skill. How to match pitch covers it step by step.
- Hear it first. Play a note, stop, and imagine it for three seconds before you sing. Then try two notes, then the first phrase of a song. The pause is the training: you're building the picture in your head.
- Sing against a drone. Play a steady note and hold the same note with it. When two sounds are nearly but not quite the same, you hear a slow wobble called beating, and it slows and fades as they match (beats in acoustics). Listen for it to disappear.
- Intervals by song. Learn what each interval sounds like through a song you already know, then sing the interval from any starting note. See the ladder below.
- Solfège. Sing do, re, mi and so on up and down a scale, then sing short patterns such as do-mi-so. The syllables give names to the relationships you're hearing.
- Higher or lower. Hear two notes and decide which way the second one moved, with the gap getting smaller. Useful mainly if you find direction hard; see below.
Gaye Tolan Hatfield, writing for Berklee Online, sums up the singer's version neatly: "if you can sing it, you can hear it" (Hatfield, Berklee Online, 2023).
Interval training: learn intervals with songs you know
The quickest way to learn an interval is to tie it to the first jump in a familiar song. When you need a perfect 4th, you think of Amazing Grace and the jump is already in your voice. These are all public-domain tunes, and each opening interval was checked against a written score.
To practise, sing the opening of the song up to the jump, then sing just the two notes of the jump on "la", then start on a different note and sing the same jump. Check yourself with a pitch checker: a perfect 4th should land 5 semitones above where you started. Learn two intervals a week rather than all six at once.
When listening really is the bottleneck
Listening drills matter most if you often can't tell which way a note moved. Signs to look for: you can't say whether a second note is higher or lower, even when the gap is large, or two different notes sound the same to you. For most people that's not the problem, but it's worth checking rather than guessing.
The free tone deaf test plays pairs of notes and asks which way the second went, with the steps getting smaller. If you do well, put your practice time into the singing exercises above. If you struggle with big gaps, add a few minutes of higher-or-lower practice to each session and read Am I tone deaf?, which explains congenital amusia, a lifelong difficulty hearing pitch. An audiologist can check your hearing properly.
Is solfège worth learning?
It's worth it if you sing in a choir or want to read music, and optional otherwise. Solfège gives each note of the scale a syllable. In the movable-do system used by the Kodály method, the syllables stand for a note's place in the key and its relationship to the other notes, not a fixed pitch (Kodály method). So do is home, wherever the song starts, and do-mi-so sounds the same shape in any key.
The Kodály method pairs the syllables with Curwen hand signs, which also show how high or low each note is. For adults singing for pleasure, sing-back and intervals by song come first. Add solfège when you want to learn tunes faster or sing from a score.
A week of 10-minute sessions
Five short sessions and two rest days. Each one ends with you singing and checking.
Swipe sideways to see the whole table.
| Day | 10-minute session | What it trains |
|---|---|---|
| Monday | Sing-back: ten single notes near your comfortable note, checking each | Ear to voice |
| Tuesday | Hear it first, then sing. Intervals: major 2nd and perfect 4th by song | Inner hearing |
| Wednesday | Rest | |
| Thursday | Drone: hold five notes against a steady note until the wobble fades | Fine tuning |
| Friday | Intervals: minor 3rd, major 3rd and perfect 5th by song, from new starting notes | Relative pitch |
| Saturday | Higher or lower for three minutes, then one song phrase on solfège or "la" | Listening and memory |
| Sunday | Rest |
Record one sing-back round each Monday and keep it. Comparing weeks tells you more than any single session.
Ear training mistakes singers make
A common mistake is training only your ears and never your voice. A few others:
- Only tapping answers. Naming intervals on a screen is useful, but if you never sing them, the skill stays in your ears. Sing every interval you name.
- Practising outside your comfortable notes. In a 2007 study, poor-pitch singers went flat on notes above their comfortable pitch and sharp below it (Pfordresher and Brown, 2007), so start intervals from a note in the middle of your voice. Why do I sing flat? covers the other causes.
- Skipping the check. Singing an interval without checking it tells you nothing. Use a recording or a pitch display every time.
- Long, rare sessions. An hour once a week is hard to keep up. Ten minutes on most days is easier to sustain.
Do ear training apps help, and how long does it take?
Apps help when they make you sing, show your pitch and tell you clearly when you're right, and there's no fixed timeline. Apps that only ask you to tap the name of an interval train listening, which is the smaller part of the job for most singers.
The research favours seeing your pitch. Adults with poor pitch improved within a single 20-minute session when they could see their pitch on screen, more than with sound alone (Berglin, Pfordresher and Demorest, 2022). Real-world progress is slower and varies a lot from person to person; how long it takes to match pitch looks at what to expect. Singbud takes the voice-first route: a live pitch line while you sing, a practice library of 26 exercises, and a weekly check-up and a Day 21 retest so you can see change over time.
Do singers need perfect pitch?
No. Perfect pitch, naming a note with no reference, is rare and not needed for singing in tune. Singing relies on relative pitch. In an online study of 632 people aged 6 to 99, singing accuracy showed no strong decline after about age 20 (most people in the study were young), and the author concluded it is a learned skill that stays worth working on into old age (Pfordresher, 2022). Perfect pitch vs relative pitch explains the difference, and how to sing in tune puts these exercises into a full method.
Questions
What ear training should singers do first?
Start with sing-back: hear a note, sing it, and check whether you matched it with a recording or a pitch display. Then add simple intervals using songs you know, such as the opening of Twinkle, Twinkle for a perfect 5th. These train the link between hearing and singing, which is where most off-key singers need help.
Can ear training fix being tone deaf?
Most people who call themselves tone deaf aren't. True congenital amusia is a lifelong difference in hearing pitch, so be wary of any program that promises a cure. For everyone else, voice-first ear training is useful. If you struggle to hear whether a note goes up or down even with big gaps, an audiologist can check your hearing.
How long does ear training take?
There's no fixed timeline. Lab studies of singing accuracy have measured gains within a single training session when people could see their pitch, but lasting skill builds over weeks of short, regular practice. Ten minutes on most days is a realistic start. Track progress by recording the same exercise once a week and comparing.
Is solfège necessary for singers?
No, but it helps. Solfège gives each note of the scale a syllable, do, re, mi and so on, so you can name the relationships you hear and sing. It's especially useful for choir singers and anyone learning to read music. If you mainly want to sing songs you love in tune, sing-back and intervals by song come first.
Can you train your ear as an adult?
Yes. In an online study of 632 people aged 6 to 99, singing accuracy and pitch discrimination rose through childhood and showed no strong decline after about age 20, though most people in the study were young. The author concluded that singing accuracy is a learned skill that stays worth working on into later life. For adults, the most useful ear training ends in singing: hear a note, sing it, then check it.
Sources
- Pfordresher and Brown (2007). Poor-pitch singing in the absence of "tone deafness". Music Perception 25(2), University at Buffalo (PDF).
- Pfordresher and Demorest (2021). The prevalence and correlates of accurate singing. Journal of Research in Music Education 69(1), University at Buffalo (PDF).
- Pfordresher and Halpern (2013). Auditory imagery and the poor-pitch singer. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, University at Buffalo (PDF).
- Gordon Institute for Music Learning. Music Learning Theory and audiation. giml.org.
- Hatfield (2023). Ear training exercises to help you become a better musician. Berklee Online.
- Wikipedia. Kodály method (background on movable-do solfège). wikipedia.org.
- Wikipedia. Beat (acoustics) (background). wikipedia.org.
- Berglin, Pfordresher and Demorest (2022). The effect of visual and auditory feedback on adult poor-pitch remediation. University at Buffalo research record.
- Pfordresher (2022). Singing accuracy across the lifespan. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, University at Buffalo (PDF).
- ABC notation transcriptions of the songs in the interval ladder, for example Amazing Grace on abcnotation.com.
Singbud isn't a hearing test or a diagnosis. Last reviewed October 2026.