Ear training
Twangle plays a note, two notes or a chord, and you answer by ear: on your instrument, with the tuner listening, or with a button. Questions keep coming until you leave; nothing is scored.
Start
- Tap the Practice tab, then the Ear training card. The tabs stay at the bottom; the arrow at the top left, or a tap on Practice, leads back to the cards.
- The first question sounds at once, in your instrument's voice. Tap ▶ to hear it again, as often as you like.
- The wide button at the top shows the exercise, for example Intervals ⌄. Tap it to pick another: Play it back, Intervals or Chord type.
- After an answer the next question comes by itself, about one and a half seconds later.
Play it back
Twangle plays a note; find it on your instrument and hold it. While you play, the note the tuner hears shows under Play it on your instrument, so you can feel your way to it. Once the right note rings steadily, it says Right.
A note you only pass on the way doesn't count. Hold a wrong one for a second and it says Not that one: play on until you find it, or tap ▶ to hear the question again. A question you missed comes back a few questions later.
With two to four notes in a row, play them in order; a dot for each shows how far you are.
Intervals
Two notes sound, one after the other or together. Name the distance between them with a button: P5 with 5th under it, m3 with minor 3rd, and so on, from the minor 2nd to the octave. The right one glows softly; a wrong pick fades, and the right one shows a little longer before the next question.
Chord type
A chord is strummed, on a new root each time, with the first shape Chords shows for your tuning. Which kind of chord? Pick it: Major, Minor, 7, m7, sus4, up to all twenty types that Chords knows.
You choose what is asked
The ⋯ button at the top right opens What is asked, at any time:
- Play it back: the Notes, Open strings (the first), Natural notes to the 5th fret or Every note to the 12th fret, worked out for your instrument and tuning, so a bass asks bass notes; Notes in a row, 1 to 4; and Any octave counts (on at first): off, only the note in the octave Twangle played counts.
- Intervals: any of the twelve, and how they are Played: Up, Down or Together. At first the minor and major 3rd, the 4th, the 5th, the major 6th and the octave, played up.
- Chord type: any of the twenty types. At first Major, Minor and 7.
So a teacher can say "fourths and fifths this week", and you pick just those.
A tool, not a game
There are no scores, levels, streaks or reminders. Beside the play button a quiet count says how this visit goes, for example 7 of 9; it is gone when you leave Ear training and is never saved. Twangle remembers only the exercise you used last and what you chose to be asked.
Good to know
- Only Play it back uses the microphone, and only while it is on the screen. It asks for it the first time, as the tuner does; if you said no, see Help.
- Intervals and Chord type never use the microphone, so they work away from your instrument, in headphones.
- Every question sounds in your instrument's voice and follows your reference pitch (Settings → Reference pitch (A4)). Pick another instrument or tuning with the button at the top, under Ear training.
- On the 5-string banjo, Chord type strums the chord as Chords draws it, from the short string down: its g rings open where it belongs to the chord, is pressed higher up where it doesn't, or is left out.
- With TalkBack, the answer buttons say their names in words: minor seventh, 5th.
For the curious: how it never hears itself
Play it back listens through the tuner's own ears, with the same pitch detection and the same steady-note rules. While the question sounds from the speaker, and for a moment after it has faded, Twangle sets aside what the microphone hears, so its own note (or its echo off a wall) is never taken for your answer.
The right note counts once it has held for 0.3 seconds, as long as the tuner waits before it calls a string in tune. A wrong note has to hold a full second, so sliding up the neck or passing a fret on the way never counts against you.