Where Musicians Talk Music

since you are new here, some generic advice:
1) it takes time, even when your learn things the correct way, it might take a week (or more) till you get good at something
2) in the Games section there are these Exercises where you can practice really fast, if stuck try to do these as well.
3) you can hit the pause button⏸ right after you give an answer and then click on the other options, how they sound, to focus on the difference.
4) practicinng in real-life on real instrument helps too. spend some time with the music ;)

Go slowly when you are doing the test. Sometimes when you hear a chord it might be coloured by the chord you heard before. Give your ears and mind some time to clear out the previous sounds. I hope this helps.

Everyone hears things a bit differently but for me it helped a lot to stop trying so hard. When I focus too much, the Major and minor flip in my brain because the Major is supposed to sound better or something? Idk, it's a mental trick I play on myself that maybe you play on yourself too.

The Major sounds... boringly triumphant? Try to paint your own, unmistakable mental image for the things you hear. I do a mnemonic of a gladiator in the arena having just won a fight - but it's a super cheesy 80s movie version where everybody is kinda just phoning their acting in. If I can't imagine that gladiators half-hearted whatever face, holding up a boring, triumph fist, it's not major.

A simpler one is the Major 3rd - it's a doorbell. If it doesn't sound exactly like a doorbell ring, it's not a Major 3rd.

I hope that helps you as much as it did me, good luck!!

wow congrats!

Wow!!! Congratulations!!!!

Finally 🥺... Thank you everyone 🫶🏽

Congratulations!!

nicely done!

Congratulations!!!

It would require perfect pitch, which is rare, to do it JUST by ear.

Scale Spy and Chordelius are probably what you want to train. Victor is right that perfect pitch isn't an expectation in ToneGym (it's debatably possible to teach but that's another conversation).

Can you recognize whether the key is minor or major? Can you hear when the tonic is reached and when accidentals are played? Knowing that the song centers around B or G# isn't very important - it only takes a second to find what the key center is by playing a few different notes.

Do you mean the note name of the key or the structure of the key?

Yea i can decern between major and minor, but yea i do find that i struggle with finding the tonic or home in a piece o music.. i did find a little online tool that helps train this though

https://sonofield.com/apps/key-seeker/songs/irish-folk-1

Wow!! Congratulations!!

very well done

Congratulations!!

nicely done!

Congratulations!!

I don't think there's an exercise for that, but I play the Inversions Champ contest a lot, and here are my findings for Aug and Dim chords

Aug chords don't really have inversions, since the inversion of the Aug chord is just another Aug chord starting from a different location e.g C Aug (C E G#) at root position, sounds like E Aug (E G# (C)) at its 1st inversion, and only perfect pitch will solve this issue.

I'm personally confident with most chord inversions, but I still struggle with diminished chords in the Inversions Champ. Usually, I just listen for two things: The interval between the lowest and highest note (if it's a tritone, it's automatically root position), and whether or not the middle note is closer to the top or the bottom of the chord (closer to the bottom = 1st inversion, closer to the top = 2nd inversion)

If you can do the other chords though, it's about all you need. By far, the best practice I've found is to play them on an instrument and hear the nuances myself.

I have found the Chord Player on this site a helpful tool. https://www.tonegym.co/tool/item?id=chord-analyser&root=C&chord=major&inversion=0

@John Huang Thanks, John. Want is your approach to sus2 chords?