MelodEar: across Jazz Harmony

Memorizing two or three volumes of jazz standards is not in the stars for me. And I am sick of the fake books. So, I’ve stopped trying to memorize one abstract series of chord changes after another and started working on my ear - working on my understanding of harmony and expanding sensual experience of structure. I started ear training by swapping chord names with the Nashville number system. This was huge. I don’t know why I didn’t do this sooner. And Melodear is clearly the next step to fake book freedom. The graphic illustration of music this application generates is stunningly clear and mentally manageable. Using it is so effortless, It seems I could wander through this colorful harmonic landscape without a single thought in my head and the nature of music would gradually reveal itself to me anyway. And it seems to be teaching me how to sing as well (I play upright bass). So, wow! Many thanks for this beautiful and extraordinarily useful application. —— Addtional comment : After using the app for a number of months, I do wish the developer would draw mic sensitivity down into the bass range so that I might use the app with my upright bass. I understand singing is an excellent way to internalize harmony. Nevertheless, I feel testing one’s inner/silent voice with this app has it’s merits too. 2.0?

“As a professional orchestral bassist for 25 years, I have always read music off the page. The MelodEar app helps train and guide me in singing what I am hearing when I approach improvisation. It’ new to me but this is an avenue to improv that is groundbreaking! I am so enthusiastic about Eskenazy’s MelodEar development!” James S. Double Bass

I switched over from Android to Apple just to start using this app. I’m a perfectionist when it comes to learning to sing and making sure that I pair my vowels and sounds with the right keys and chords to make harmony. I’m still learning harmony and in no way is anything I do perfect or even close. Nothing is perfect! Is it? But this app sure helps you map out the musical intervals vocally in an intuitive way you can’t really find anywhere else like this. Some wishlist features would be an interactive circle of fifths, the ability to record and export sections, naming sections (verse, chorus etc), I see you guys are working on edit features for chords and scales which will be cool… my biggest wonder is if there was anyway to incorporate moveable do vs fixed do? It seems you guys have a fixed do solfège format, any thoughts on being able to toggle between the two? I’d love to hear more variety of voicing for the vowels and voices as well. I know that would require recording more voices to add into the app, but just curious how that could be expanded if at all. I’ll let you know if anything else comes to mind, but beside wishlist features, this app is changing the way I write and practice vocals and helping me better understand the relationship between modes and how music is connected as a whole for each degree. I look forward to any updates and improvements to this already stellar musical tool. I would love to learn more about your company and any opportunities in future work, I have tons of ideas for taking music theory to applications and teaching / learning music in new and intuitive ways. I’m entirely self taught and recently taught myself minimal coding to build a rough application of my own, a music theory piano of sorts, whilst teaching myself music theory. I used my theory piano to teach myself theory, and I’d love to share this more and expand on it, perhaps one day even have it incorporated within your application lineup or even part of MelodEar. I am eager to see what is next for MelodEar. Thank you very much, Kyle

Memorizing two or three volumes of jazz standards is not in the stars for me. And I am sick of the fake books. So, I’ve stopped trying to memorize one abstract series of chord changes after another and started working on my ear - working on my understanding of harmony and expanding sensual experience of structure. I started ear training by swapping chord names with the Nashville number system. This was huge. I don’t know why I didn’t do this sooner. And Melodear is clearly the next step to fake book freedom. The graphic illustration of music this application generates is stunningly clear and mentally manageable. Using it is so effortless, It seems I could wander through this colorful harmonic landscape without a single thought in my head and the nature of music would gradually reveal itself to me anyway. And it seems to be teaching me how to sing as well (I play upright bass). So, wow! Many thanks for this beautiful and extraordinarily useful application.

A fantastic app that I use in my own practice and for my advanced students!

If you really want to take the kind of musician, you are, and expand your possibilities more than you ever thought you could, this might be the app for you. It will get you thinking about things in a completely different way, and hearing different possibilities as you improvise.

This app has helped me a lot. It’s great for ear training sure, but it opened my eyes to understanding voice leading and melodic motion through harmony. It’s really amazing how my understanding of music has improved after using this app for 30 minutes every morning. It’s taken several months but I love this app. It’s challenging and fun.Highly recommend.

Great tool for ear training and singing— 2 really important musical skills, even if you aren’t primarily a singer— it’s good to develop a ‘singing’ connection to your instrument.

Very helpfull for improvisers and singers! Helps you get your ears to the next level

Used correctly this app is a great tool for getting the sound of chord progressions in your ear. It’s the kind of thing to do like 15 minutes a day and just gradually chip away. Consistent practice will make for significant growth. Only change I would make would be to allow a custom scale or chord. But frankly the available options still provide years of potential work.