Triad Ear Training - Identifying and Recognizing Triads

Triad ear training is a skill that causes many musicians—particularly instrumentalists—frustration. Many beginner musicians feel overwhelmed at the prospect of having to learn all the different notes and intervals that make up so many different chords. Major, minor, augmented, diminished triads—ear training suddenly feels like a daunting and impossible task!

But what if we told you that triad identification doesn’t have to be hard? What if there was a simple way to know exactly which chords are in a song, by using your ears alone? Read on to learn how you can simplify and streamline your triad ear training practice and learn to recognize chords on the fly, without thinking.

What Does Triad Mean?

A triad is a musical chord made up of three notes (“tri” = three.) Triads are the most commonly found chords in Western music. When most people talk about “chords” they are really talking about triads. In this article, when we talk about “chords” we are talking about triads.

Triads are the basis of harmonic progression. Each degree of the scale has a triad built on it. The basic structure of a triad is the root note (the scale degree from which the chord is built), the third (a third above the root note), and the fifth (a fifth above the root note.)

Don’t get too hung up on worrying about how to identify the exact notes or intervals in the triad. Recognizing intervals and individual notes are not a practical nor usable approach to identifying triads by ear. We include information about structure just to give you a basic understanding of the chord shape.

In this article, we’re going to show why the triad identification of major and minor chords (i.e. knowing the quality of the chords) is less important than knowing the actual root note of the chord.

Different Types of Triads

There are four types of triads: major, minor, diminished and augmented. Each one sounds different, and each one corresponds to a different degree of the scale. When we talk about whether a chord is major, minor, augmented, or diminished, we are talking about the “quality” of the chord.

In this article, we are not going to talk only about “major and minor triads ear training” as you may understand it from previous experience. We are going to talk about how to internalize tonality to gain a deeper understanding of how major and minor chords function in harmony. This will enable you not only to hear the difference between major and minor chords, but understand the different sensations of all triads within a key, and identify them without thinking.

Major Triad

The major chord is usually the “happy-sounding” chord. The major tonic chord is the “home chord” of any major key, and returning to this chord at the end of a chord progression provides a strong sense of resolution.

However, not all major chords always sound stable. The V chord, for example, sounds very tense and unstable because it contains the seventh degree of the scale, which wants to resolve to the I.

We write major triads as capitalized roman numerals. Major triads can be found on the tonic note of the scale (the I chord), on the fourth note of the scale (the IV chord), and on the fifth note of the scale (the V chord).

These three chords (the I, IV, and V) are the basis for many chord progressions you will hear in Western music.

Minor Triad

The minor chord is the “sad sounding” chord. It has a melancholy sound. However, minor chords do not always sound “sad” and are not only found in sad songs. They are also used to transition between major chords in many different chord progressions. In fact, as part of the right progression, a minor chord can actually have a more neutral sound.

As it happens for major chords, minor chords can be either stable or unstable depending on the degree they assume in the scale. For example, the vi chord often appears as a stable-sounding minor chord, whereas the iii chord often appears as an unstable minor chord.

We write minor chords as lowercase roman numerals. Minor chords can be found on the second degree of the scale (the ii chord), the third degree of the scale (the iii chord), and the sixth degree of the scale (the vi chord.)

Minor chords appear alongside major chords in lots of chord progressions. Another one of the most recognizable chord progressions in Western music is the vi ii V I progression. A lot of jazz and popular music uses this progression.

Importance of Triad Recognition in Ear Training

Triad ear training is sometimes overlooked by musicians who want to improve their ears. However, because triads are the backbone of harmony, it’s important that you are able to recognize them when you hear them.

By that, we don’t just mean that if you hear a chord played out of context you can say what the quality of the chord is (major or minor), or know exactly which notes and intervals are in the chord.

It’s much more important to be able to recognize the root note of a triad, and the scale degree to which it belongs. Why is this? Well, let’s say you want to learn a song on guitar, and your teacher tells you that the three chords in the song are all major chords. Will you know how to play the song?

Of course not. You will have no idea where to put your hands on the instrument. It’s much more useful for your teacher to tell you that the song is in the key of C and that the root notes of the chords in the song are I, IV, and V.

Now you know where the tonic of the song is (C), and if you know the C scale, you know that the IV and V chords in C are F and G. You also know that these three chords are all major because they are built on the I, IV and V degrees of the scale.

Chord Quality Recognition

Chord quality recognition exercises only teach you how to recognize the quality of a triad, out of context. By this we mean they teach you to recognize whether a single chord is major or minor, or what intervals are in the chord.

This approach is very similar to interval ear training methods you come across online, and it is not a good approach. In these kinds of exercises, chords are played completely at random, outside of any musical context. You might learn how to tell if a single chord is major or minor, but you will have no idea how it functions in a song. If you want to learn how to identify chords in songs by ear quickly and effortlessly you have to prioritize practicing “chord progression recognition” exercises. Keep reading to find out how…

Chord Progression Recognition

Chord progression recognition exercises teach you how to recognize each chord in a chord progression (such as the I IV V or ii V I progression), by listening to the sound of the chord and understanding how it moves within the scale.

For example, you will be able to listen to a song and think “Aha! That’s a I IV V progression.” Then, all you need to do is identify the tonic of the song (the key the song is in) and you will know exactly which chords to play.

The Zoom In Method vs. The Zoom Out Method

The Zoom In Method and Zoom Out Method are two different ways of analyzing chords. Both are methods of understanding chord progressions, but the Zoom Out Method is a far more effective technique.

The Zoom In Method

In the Zoom In Method, you take a very analytical approach to understanding exactly which notes are in a chord. You “zoom in” and listen carefully to each note in the chord, and after you have identified all the notes, you understand what the chord is.

As you can imagine, this is time-consuming and difficult. People often use an instrument to help them pick out the individual notes in a chord. This is an ineffective technique because you are not training the cognitive processes required to recognize chords by ear, but are relying on an instrument instead.

The Zoom Out Method

In the Zoom Out method, you “zoom out” and listen to each chord within a progression. You don’t worry about exactly which notes or intervals make up each chord, you just listen to the global sound and “mood” created by each chord.

Each chord has a particular feeling associated with it, depending on what degree of the scale it is built on. By internalizing their feelings, you will be able to recognize chords immediately when you hear them in a progression, without thinking.

The vast majority of the chord progressions you will listen to will be made up of just the 7 triad chords that you find within the key, so once you can recognize them you will recognize 95% of the chord progressions out there with no problem at all.

Not only that, the Zoom Out Method will also indirectly help you to recognize chord quality. For example: you know that the ii chord is minor, while the V and I are major. If you hear a progression that you recognize as a ii V I progression, you will immediately understand which chords are major and which ones are minor without having to analyze the chords at all.

This is of help also when performing tasks like recognizing chord quality when chords are played in isolation. For example, if you are practicing with an ear trainer app that plays you a chord and asks you to recognize its quality you will be able to feel “oh, that sounds like a vi chord to me…so it’s a minor chord!”.

Do You Want to Learn to Recognize Triads by Ear? We Can Help You

Learning how to recognize triads by ear can feel like a daunting task. But it doesn’t have to be. With simple building blocks, you can build an awareness of musical tonality. You will start to understand the tension/resolution interplay between chords, and the musical colors that each chord assumes within the scale.

At Use Your Ear, we’ve developed a comprehensive ear training course that includes in-depth training on recognizing chord progressions to help you develop your inner ear and learn to recognize triads on the fly.

Relative Pitch Video-Course

The Use Your Ear Relative Pitch Video Course is the best online method for developing relative pitch skills available. Our method is the only science-based, step-by-step method designed to work for musicians of any level or age. It includes a vast amount of content on triad ear training and will help you to build your musical vocabulary and improve your ability to identify chords and pitches quickly and effortlessly.

You will improve your triad identification by learning how to recognize the root note of chords within a progression without thinking about it, and how to apply that skill to real-life musical situations. This is just one of the benefits that you get from signing up for our course—check out more by clicking the button below.

Free Use Your Ear Workshop

The free Use Your Ear workshop is an excellent introduction to our method. In this three-hour introductory lesson, you’ll learn how to effectively develop your inner ear.

Whether you’re a total beginner or someone who has tried recognizing chords by ear in the past without success, you’ll learn how our methods can help you improve your chord recognition skills. You’ll also see how hundreds of other students were able to develop this skill starting from zero.

Moreover, you’ll practice lots of different exercises, understand your current level, and come away with actionable steps to work on at home in your own practice. Lastly, you will discover a science-based model that shows you how great musicians are able to recognize notes/chords on the fly, and how you can learn to do the same.

Individual Online Lessons

Want to take your skills to the next level? Our one-on-one online lessons will pair you with a qualified ear training teacher who knows our method inside out and can provide immediate feedback on your abilities, pinpoint trouble spots and work on them with you, or give you the tools to move forward to advanced techniques and skill sets.

This is perfect for serious music students or anyone who needs to make a big improvement in a very short time.

How our students quickly learn to recognize chords by ear

Check out how our students go from zero to recognizing chord progressions by ear in a few months, following the Use Your Ear method.