73: Music Theory Tip: What is Ear Training and How Can I Include it in my Homeschool?

Have you ever heard the term “ear training” and wondered what it means—or if your homeschooled child really needs it? In this episode of the Music in Our Homeschool podcast, Gena Mayo breaks down this essential skill for budding musicians of all ages.

You'll discover how ear training develops a musician’s ability to hear and identify musical elements like pitch, rhythm, intervals, and chords—all without needing to read music first. Gena shares how she uses playful listening activities with preschoolers, from identifying animal calls to recognizing musical instruments, and how this early work builds into more advanced skills like sight singing, dictation, and chord recognition in her music theory courses.

Whether you're teaching music to your preschool or elementary students or helping your teen prepare for college-level theory, this episode will show you how ear training makes a huge impact. And don’t worry—you don’t need to be a music expert to help your child thrive!

Tune in and learn how to start building this skill right from your homeschool!

Mentioned in this episode:

• Beginning Music Theory for Elementary
• Beginning Music Theory for Teens
• Advanced Music Theory for Teens
• KinderBach prepatory piano and music theory for Preschoolers

Find links to all resources mentioned in this episode here: https://musicinourhomeschool.com/what-is-ear-training/ 

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Transcript

E73 Music Theory Tip What is Ear Training

Gena: [00:00:00] Hi friends. Welcome back to the Music in Our Homeschool podcast. This is Gena Mayo of Music in Our Homeschool, and today we're talking about the question, what is ear training? Perhaps you've heard about ear training with music or music theory, and you are curious what that is. That's what we're talking about today.

Ear training is the process of learning to recognize musical elements by hearing them, not needing to see them written down first. Just like we train our eyes to read written music, we will train our ears to understand sound. Through ear training, musicians learn to hear and identify intervals, that's the distance between two notes; recognize rhythms, and then accurately clap or write them down; match pitch and sing in tune; detect chord types and harmonic progressions; sing from sheet music using Solfege [00:01:00] or scale degrees; and even write down melodies, rhythms, and harmonies that you hear.

Ear training is like learning a new language, but instead of speaking with words, you're speaking with music.

It helps musicians connect what they hear to what they play, sing, or read. It sharpens listening, builds confidence, and is essential for everything from playing by ear to improvising, to composing your own songs. And the best part, you don't have to be a musical expert to start. With the right tools and guidance, any student, even a beginner, can train their ears and grow into a stronger, more intuitive musician.

One of the things that I do in my early childhood music and movement classes is have the students in my class, listen. We do really fun games, like listening to animal sounds and having them [00:02:00] distinguish between those different animal sounds. It could be barnyard animals, but then we get a little bit more difficult by listening and comparing different bird calls like a robin, a cardinal, a chickadee, and an owl. And they start to recognize the difference between those. And then when they're outside in their backyard, they might hear that bird and they'll come back and tell me next week, "Mrs. Mayo, I heard a robin," or "I heard a chickadee." We do this with lots of different animals like frogs and insects, and even some more difficult ones like the fox or the porcupine.

Then we move into identifying different instrument sounds. I want them to hear a violin and a clarinet and a triangle and a trumpet, and be able to know which instrument is playing and how they sound different. So that is one thing we do at the very beginning of [00:03:00] ear training with preschoolers.

I do have three music theory courses over at Music in Our Homeschool: Beginning Music Theory for Elementary, Beginning Music Theory for Teens, and Advanced Music Theory for Teens. And all three of these courses have ear training built in at the various levels. Here are some of the concepts that they will be learning in these different courses.

High versus low. This is one of the first ear training concepts and it's pitch comparison. Students begin to recognize whether two notes in a row, the second one is higher than the first, lower than the first or the same. It's helping them develop pitch awareness. And it's also great to do certain things for the younger children, like they're moving their bodies up and down with the music to physically feel how it's going up or down, or they're pointing to animals that match like a bird for [00:04:00] a high note or a bear for a low note. This early listening skill is essential for understanding melody and pitch later on.

Another thing they're listening for is loud versus soft. This is dynamics. So I will play something really loud. It might be on the piano, or it might be a song that we're listening to and they're identifying whether it's loud/ forte or piano/ soft.

Fast versus slow, or tempo is the next one that we want them to listen for. So again, I'll play the music and they're identifying whether the music's beat is moving fast or slow.

A great activity that I also do with my elementary students is I will clap a rhythm and then the student will clap it back. So they're listening to my rhythm being clapped like this. And then they clap that back. We'll do that with [00:05:00] singing as well. I'll sing something like bum, bum, bum, and have them echo it back. Then we move into Solfege, so, mi, so. And they might even do it with the hand signs, so, mi, so. That is so helpful for ear training.

Later on, they'll start to learn about intervals, and we'll play two notes like bum, bum, and they have to identify what that interval is. That was a perfect fourth, by the way. A trick that we give them to help them understand the intervals and recognize them is that it's the beginning of some famous songs. The one I just sang was, "Here comes the bride." Perfect fourth.

Rhythmic dictation can get much more complicated. I just gave you a simple one earlier when I clapped that rhythm, but it could be much longer and it could [00:06:00] use dotted notes for the rhythms or syncopations or triplets, and that is also part of ear training.

Melodic dictation is when you hear a melody being played on the piano, and then you write it on your staff paper. This is something that we use for the older students, the teenagers, and they start hearing those intervals and then knowing what the rhythms are, and then putting it actually down on the paper.

As students get older, they might be listening to some more complicated intervals, such as a tritone, which is an augmented fourth or a diminished fifth, and then they are starting to identify chords as well. Major chords, minor chords. Diminished and augmented, seventh chords and different types of seventh chords. Major seventh, [00:07:00] dominant seventh, and writing those down on the paper.

Then it moves into harmonic dictation where they are having the melody being played with the right hand in the piano and a chord in the left hand, and they have to write that down.

 Sight singing will also get much more complicated as they get older, and they will look at the music on the staff and then be able to sing it back because their ear has been trained so well.

Gena: Just in case you're wondering if you need to know how to do ear training yourself before you can help your student, the answer is no. Because just like everything else at Music in Our Homeschool, you can learn alongside your child. I encourage you to take a look at one of the Beginning Music Theory courses, for Elementary or for Teens and start helping your child develop ear training. Even if they decide they don't [00:08:00] want to be a musician when they're older, it just gives them much better grasp of being able to focus and pay attention to detail in their everyday life.

Take a look at the show notes or description for links to everything I've mentioned today. And until next time, keep the music alive.

Find links to all resources mentioned in this episode here: https://musicinourhomeschool.com/what-is-ear-training/