piano-trainer.appPress Play to start a new dictation.
Click any chip to hear that diatonic chord. Helps you anchor the key and recognize each chord function.
Diatonic chords in A majorChord dictation builds your harmonic ear: the ability to hear a chord and immediately know what it is. It is the difference between transcribing a melody from a song and transcribing the full chord progression that supports it.
Producers and composers use this every day. A pop loop, a movie cue, a video-game theme: once your ear catches the harmony in real time, you can sketch it straight into your DAW without trial and error.
The bass note carries 60% of the harmonic information. Enable "Show chord root" while you train your ear to identify the bass first, then layer the quality (major / minor) on top.
I-IV-V-I and ii-V-I are the two most common patterns in Western music. Practicing them in C major builds reflexes you'll reuse in every song you ever transcribe.
The on-screen piano on small phones makes octave-precise input painful. Toggle exact-octave off so any matching pitch class counts. Your ear is still trained correctly.
10 minutes a day with chord dictation moves the needle faster than a 1-hour weekend session. Harmonic patterns consolidate during sleep — daily practice gives your brain that loop.
A diatonic chord is built only from notes of the chosen key. In C major, the diatonic chords are C, Dm, Em, F, G, Am, B°. The trainer stays diatonic by default so the sequences sound natural and learnable.
No. The on-screen piano works on desktop and mobile. A MIDI keyboard is faster for chord input (all fingers at once) but completely optional.
I, IV, V are major chords (uppercase). ii, iii, vi are minor (lowercase). vii° is diminished (degree symbol). The roman numeral describes the function regardless of key, so I-V-vi-IV in C is C-G-Am-F, in D is D-A-Bm-G, etc.
That chord's quality is one your ear hasn't internalized yet. Drop the sequence length to 2 and practice in a single key until that chord becomes obvious. Then go back up.
Knowing how chords are built (root + 3rd + 5th, intervals between scale degrees, cadence functions) makes chord dictation dramatically faster. The theory page covers it with audible examples and a piano you can try.