Play By Ear - Ear Training

I like this app a lot, and it fills a need, but it’s a little tough for beginners (or people learning a new instrument, like me). A couple of things would make it easier: 1. Provide a “repeat” option: play the phrase, wait, play it again, wait, then give answer. Gives the student two tries. (Could even give a three-tries option.) 2. Allow limiting the scale patterns to a selected set of scales/keys. Maybe the jazz licks one, too. You can fudge this with the random notes by selecting notes to fit a scale, which is what I’ve ended up doing, for now, but it would be nice to have something more melodic. I have not tried anything with chords, yet, because I’m using this with trumpet. Which gives me another suggestion: maybe you could provide profiles for multi-instrumentalists (it would only affect pitch recognition, I suppose, so might not be worth the effort).

Fantastic app for ear training. I am a piano teacher and I am using it personally and giving it to my students. I have not found anything better.

Excellent. Random root notes good. Would like to test from the same root note sometimes.

Use it

This app has been a great addition to my ear training. After getting a good grasp on my intervals, this has been an awesome way to apply that knowledge without getting overwhelmed. I think every musician can benefit from doing some kind of training like this, and this app makes it possible to train without needing a partner to do call and response with - you can do it on your own from anywhere. In my opinion, two additional features would make it a perfect app. Neither are THAT crucial, but would help. 1) vary the rhythms of the randomly generated melodies, and 2) add a bass clef option. Even without those features, I’ll still continue to spend a few minutes a day with this app and I’m sure I will see benefits over time.

Lots of false errors. If you play the first note of a sequence too long, it will register that you played it for both notes of the interval. It is especially glitchy in chord recognition mode. You can’t play back a chord harmonically, it has to be arpeggiated, and then it often registers errors falsely, or it is listening for one note of the chord when you’ve already moved on to another. Your score ends up being frustratingly inaccurate. The program still feels pretty stiff to use. Also, I couldn’t find an option for randomizing ascending, descending, melodic and harmonic intervals, which would be more useful than only hearing one type of interval at a time.

Simple and well-functioning portable ear trainer. Holds you to accurate intonation. All apps should function this well.

This app is extremely well designed and perfect for anyone looking to improve their aural skills. It accomplishes more than what other music theory websites like teoria or musictheory.net because it identifies your progress and your errors for you. You can physically see what you got right and wrong. I feel more prepared because of this app for music school!!

This app is helping me with intervals. It also won't register a correct pitch if I chip it slightly on my horn. Easy to use too.

I hope this app never stops being developed. It's absolutely perfect!!