The Ear Training Olympics 🥇🥈🥉

Today I invite you to put your ears (and also later eyes) to the test in 5 music challenges. Let me know in the comments how you get on! 🥇🥈🥉

And, an extra special thanks goes to Chase Heeler, Peter Keller, Douglas Lind, Vidad Flowers, Ivan Pang, Waylon Fairbanks, Jon Dye, Austin Russell, Christopher Ryan, Toot & Paul Peijzel, the channel’s Patreon saints! 😇

The opening and closing music is “Bugler's Dream Olympic Fanfare” by John Williams, performed by The Bands of HM Royal Marines

0:00 Opening Ceremony
0:25 Intervals
2:47 Chord Quality
5:23 Scales
9:00 ToneGym
9:44 Harmonic Intervals
12:46 Reading Pitch
15:11 Closing Ceremony

[Chigger]

13:09 "When I was a young boy-"

[predatorx]

I wasn't able to make the podium for any, but it was definitely a fun exercise 😂❤... More of these please David

[royalex]

Intervals: 12/12 GOLD
Chord types: 12/12 GOLD
Scales: 12/12 GOLD
Harmonic Intervals: 12/12 GOLD
Sight reading: 16/16 GOLD

5 Gold medals baby!!!

[Whitestripe]

The comments you make about dim/aug chords are very helpful to me, thanks. I'm not as confident as I would like to be in differentiating between them, but what you say about diminished chords feeling more directional, like they need to go somewhere, is actually really helpful to me. And you make a similar point about P4 as opposed to P5 - thinking of it as a sus4 sound that want to resolve down. In both these cases, the general advice of thinking about the directional movement of what I'm hearing, of where it wants to move to, is a fantastic little piece of advice, thanks.

[electroencephalrgram]

now this is an olympic sport i might actually be able to do
update: 3 gold and 2 silver 🥳

[lp-xlld]

The good news: I can sightread perfectly. The bad news: pretty much everything else (PS: for the sightread event, should have thrown in some notes in bass clef)

[urskunz]

thank you so much for the "it sounds like it wants to go somewhere" on diminished chords versus augmented chords which does not have that feel. That was exactly the logical explanation I was looking for. Same goes for harmonic perfect fourth and fifth. Need to practice those a bit, but now I'm sure I'll get there!

[thecopster]

Intervals - 11/12
Chord types - 12/12
Scales 12/12
Intervals 4 10/12 - keep getting 4ths and 5ths mixed up!
Sight reading 16/16
I found the chords and scales much easier than the intervals, perhaps playing guitar and piano has helped me out with this!

[steellemonstudios]

Fun idea! Good point about the sight reading (notes moving in the exercise similar to eye movement). Really wish I had that tool when I was first learning to sight read.

[Kuhleb]

Intervals: Gold
Chord quality: Silver
Scales: Gold
Harmonic Intervals: Silver
Reading Pitch: Gold

I'm not at all surprised I got silver on chord quality, i listen to tons of music where major and minor roles are reversed from the standard "happy/sad" of western, but i also hear plenty of western music as well, so they are harder to distinguish for me based on quality.

[ProximusAeroTech]

Intervals: 12/12, ez
Chord Quality: 11/12, dim or aug got me
Scales: 12/12, also ez
Harmonic Intervals: 11/12, P4 and P5 was kinda tricky
Sight Reading: 12/12, Fast-paced, but ez

[somerandomnerd]

Intervals - 12/12 gold
Quality - 12/12 gold
Scales - 12/12 gold
Harmonic Int - 11/12 silver (the suspension-resolution tip is actually new to me; thanks!)
Sight - 16/16 gold

I will say that these exercises were a lot easier than when I had just started in music theory class, but the difficult part in transcription is hearing these all in context! Scales at fast tempos really toss me off, and surprisingly, so do diatonic chord progressions (2ndary dominances and modal interchange jump out and are easier in a strange way).

[BurntValleyRoad]

I managed to get Bronze, Bronze, Silver, Bronze, and DNF (my adhd makes reading music impossible). I could never have done this without faithfully watching you, David. You have helped me unlock levels I could never have imagined. Thank you!

[borokaszelyes]

Intervals: 12/12 GOLD
Chord types: 10/12 SILVER
Scales: 8/12 BRONZE
Harmonic intervals: 12/12 GOLD
Sight reading: 16/16 GOLD

I’ve got some problems with scales, also some difficulties with aug or dim chords.:)

[cgi]

the most difficult part for most people was probably telling the difference between diminished and augmented chords. listen for the tritone and darker feeling created by the minor third in dimished chords. augmented chords are more spread out.

[tiyenin]

I'm 30 seconds in, haven't heard a note yet, and I give myself a platinum metal with diamond trim.

[TenThumbsProductions]

I feel a lot more like an Australian break dancer than I do a Turkish Sharp shooter here.

[bohemianvillage]

Intervals: Bronze (mostly because of the major thirds, whereas I always got the minor thirds right)
Chord Quality: Gold
Scales: Gold
Harmonic Intervals: Silver (I found the major fourths easier here, due to the sound sus4 chords)
Sight Reading: no medal (complete car crash)

Probably the classic result of someone who plays more by ear.

[MartyWilson]

Intervals: 12/12
Chord quality: 12/12
Scales: 12/12
Harmonic intervals: 12/12
Sight reading pitch: 16/16
😎👍🥇

[evesy]

event 1 (intervals): 10/12 - silver
event 2 (chord quality): 10/12 - silver
event 3 (scales): 9/12 - bronze
event 4 (harmonic intervals): 11/12 - silver
event 5 (reading pitch): 16/16 - gold

surprised myself as im usually not good at these!