Guitar Games | Theta Music Trainer: Ear Training and Music Theory

Theta Music Trainer offers a great selection of play-by-ear games for guitarists, designed to sharpen aural and music theory skills, particularly those involving chords and chord progressions. You can play the first three levels of all games, record your scores and track your progress simply by creating a free account.

Ear Training and Music Theory for Guitar As a guitarist, there are certain 'ear' skills that are absolutely essential to your playing. Virtually all guitar players need some knowledge of chords and chord progressions. These games will help you identify common chords and chord patterns by ear. You will also learn the music theory behind the construction of chords and progressions.

Flash Chords

Chord Indentification

Tone Trees

Building Chords on Guitar

Speaker Chords

Chord Progressions and Patterns

Playing Melodies by Ear on Guitar The ability to hear simple melodies and then quickly play them back on your guitar is a powerful skill for all guitarists. The games below will train you to instantly translate melodies you hear in your mind (or played by others) into fingering patterns on the guitar fretboard.

Parrot Phrases

Melodic Call & Response

Three Tones Major

Major Patterns

Three Tones Minor

Minor Patterns

Guitar Games for Playing Chords by Ear

Flash Chords

Once you've worked out the key to a song, figuring out the chords and basic harmony is fairly straightforward, provided you understand the various roles (tonic, dominant, etc.) that each chord can play and are able to identify them by ear. Flash Chords will challenge your chord recognition skills with tight time limits and a wide range of instrument sounds.

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Tone Trees

Can you quickly find the roots and other tones that make up the chords you hear? This game will train your ear to easily hear chord tones - the individual pitches that comprise a particular chord. In addition, you'll learn to identify the position of each tone in the chord and also how to visualize the chord shapes on a piano or guitar.

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Speaker Chords

Would you like to be able to quickly figure out the chords to any song? This game will train your ear to identify the common chord patterns that make up most rock and pop songs. By knowing these patterns and knowing where the chords are going, you will be able to play sessions and gigs with much more ease and confidence.

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Guitar Games for Playing Melodies by Ear

Parrot Phrases

When you hear a simple melody, can you immediately play it back on your instrument? Parrot Phrases is a 'call and response' game where you listen to a melodic phrase and then 'parrot' it back using a virtual guitar or piano. The phrases start simple and gradually build in speed and complexity. See how accurately you can play what you hear!

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Three Tones (Major)

Melodies often contain common patterns - groups of 3 or 4 notes that tend to appear together in the same order. This game will help you recognize melodies aurally by training your ability to catch these short patterns. It is similar to Parrot Phrases, but uses all keys and a wide range of instrument sounds.

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Three Tones (Minor)

Just as you learned your spoken language by imitating short words and phrases, you learn the language of tonal music by hearing and repeating short melodic phrases. Melodies in minor keys have a distinct quality that is based on the minor scale and its variations. Try your hand at these 3-tone minor key fragments.

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