Duration Hearing
Listen to the tone and identify the note duration
Tip
Count along with the tempo. A metronome click plays before each tone to help you feel the beat.
About Duration Hearing
Rhythm is half of music. Most ear training focuses on pitch, but the ability to hear "that was a half note, that was a dotted quarter" is what lets you transcribe, sight-read, and write music down.
What Duration Hearing Trains
This game plays a single tone against a metronome click and asks how long the tone lasted, measured in beats. It sounds simple but it is genuinely hard at first — especially distinguishing dotted notes from their neighbors, or hearing the precise difference between a half note and a dotted half.
Once developed, this skill is what lets you write down the rhythm of a melody you just heard. It is also what makes you a tighter ensemble player, because you stop guessing about note lengths and start hearing them precisely.
The Note Values
| Note | Beats (in 4/4) | How it feels |
|---|---|---|
| Whole note | 4 | Holds the entire measure |
| Dotted half | 3 | Three of four beats — one beat of silence after |
| Half note | 2 | Half the measure |
| Dotted quarter | 1½ | One beat plus an off-beat half |
| Quarter note | 1 | One pulse, matches the click |
| Eighth note | ½ | Two per beat |
| Sixteenth note | ¼ | Four per beat |
A dot next to a note adds half of its original value. A dotted half (2 + 1 = 3 beats) is the most common dotted note; a dotted quarter (1 + ½ = 1½ beats) is the second.
Why Tempo Matters
This game plays a metronome click before each tone so you have an external reference. The faster the BPM, the shorter every duration becomes in real time — a half note at 60 BPM lasts two seconds, but a half note at 120 BPM lasts only one. The proportion stays the same, which is what your ear is actually evaluating.
Beginners often find slower tempos easier because they can count beats explicitly ("one, two, three, four"). Once you are comfortable, raise the tempo to 100 or 120 — that is where most real music lives.
How to Listen
- Count the metronome. The click is your ruler. Count "one, two, three, four" silently along with it.
- Start the count on the attack. When the tone begins, that is beat one of its duration. Count beats until it stops.
- Listen for the release. A clear release between beats two and three of the click means the note lasted exactly two beats: a half note.
- For dotted notes, listen for the off-beat. A dotted quarter ends halfway between two metronome clicks, not exactly on one.
Tips
- Start on Beginner at 100 BPM. Three durations only: whole, half, quarter. Drill until they feel automatic.
- Tap your foot with the metronome. The physical motion locks the beat into your body and frees your ears to focus on the duration.
- Eighth and sixteenth notes are about subdivision. Mentally double the click for eighths, quadruple it for sixteenths.
- Pair this with Duration Reading. Hearing and reading durations side-by-side builds both skills faster than either in isolation.
Tip: The dotted-quarter-plus-eighth rhythm is one of the most common patterns in popular music. Once you can hear it reliably, you can transcribe the rhythm of half the songs on the radio.