Sound lab
Hear what the string is doing.
The harmonics and beating labs below are not recordings. Each note is built from a small model of a vibrating string, so what you see on the screen is what you hear. Play with them, then train your ear.
Your guitar
The sound used for every chord, tab, strum pattern and ear-training question in the app.
Click one to hear the same short strum. Your choice is used everywhere in the app and saved in this browser.
Steel-string recordings: University of Iowa Musical Instrument Samples, via tonejs-instruments (CC BY 3.0). Nylon-string: Spanish classical guitar by FreePats (CC0). Both are tuned and level-matched in the app.
Harmonics: why the 12th fret rings an octave
A string never makes one pure tone. It vibrates in halves, thirds, quarters and so on all at once, and the notes you hear are those partials added together. Touch the string at the right spot and you silence all but a few.
String
Try the natural harmonics:
Numbers are partials: 1 is the note itself, 2 an octave up, 3 an octave and a fifth. Dashed = plucked, solid = what survives.
You hear: A3, 220 hertz, the 2nd partial of the open string.
A finger resting on the string forces a node there, so only partials with a node at that spot survive. Half way along (fret 12) that is every even partial, so the octave rings out. The nth harmonic sits at fret 12.0, 7.0, 5.0, 3.9 for n = 2, 3, 4, 5.
Beats: how to tune by ear
Two notes that are nearly, but not quite, the same pitch swell and fade together. The closer they get, the slower the swell, until it stops. Move the slider toward the middle.
Strings
0.89 beats per second. Slow swells: you are close. The fretted string is sharp.
The two notes are 110.0 Hz and 110.9 Hz. When their cycles line up the sound swells, and when they oppose it fades, so you hear 0.89 swells a second, the difference of the two. Tuning by ear is just this: tighten or loosen the string until the swells slow down and stop.
Name that interval
Link each sound to a tune you know. The hint after each answer names one.
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Choose what you are asked about (5)
At least two. Start small and add more when those feel easy.
Name that chord
Major, minor and the rest each have a mood. Listen for it before you try to hear the notes.
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Choose what you are asked about (3)
At least two. Start small and add more when those feel easy.