ABRSM Aural Trainer Grades 1-5 4+
Aural practice made easy
The Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music (Publishing) Limited
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- £7.99
- Offers In-App Purchases
Screenshots
Description
The OFFICIAL ABRSM Aural Trainer contains interactive challenges to help develop your music aural skills (listening skills). Anyone can use it, but it is designed around ABRSM’s aural tests for Grades 1 to 5. The app can be used in any order, however often you like, on your own or with your teacher.
Use ABRSM Aural Trainer to:
• Improve your sense of pulse and metre (feeling the beat).
• Exercise your musical memory (remember how music sounds and be able to repeat it or spot differences and mistakes).
• Develop your confidence and accuracy at sight-singing (reading and singing the music you see).
• Learn to describe dynamics, articulation, tempo and tonality.
• Practise identifying the features in music that make-up its style and character.
• Develop the skills to know when a piece of music was written.
The app covers the following ABRSM aural test content:
• Pulse and Metre
• Echoes
• Differences
• Melodic Repetition
• Sight-singing
• Musical Features
• Rhythmic Repetition
• Metre
Tackle each element in stages using the preparation exercises.
All exercises are fully interactive. Each one gives you the opportunity to repeat the question, or to compare your response to the correct answer and hear the music again. The app also features supporting tools including an interval trainer, progress tracker and guides to the aural tests in ABRSM graded music exams.
Many exercises are automatically marked by the application. Self-review and critical listening are also key to successful development of the musical ear, which is why the app provides tools for you to review and evaluate your performance against sample responses in all cases. Your progress is logged whenever you use the app, so you can always see at a glance the areas you might want to revisit.
What’s New
Version 3.4
Adding new ABRSM brand colours and fixes.
Ratings and Reviews
Three stars
So, this app is quite glitchy. Sometimes it doesn’t register my tapping, sometimes it just flat out crashes, one time it even gave me a correct answer for what I knew was wrong. However, the concept is great. Helping students prepare for their oral exam, what could be better? As a student who is approaching her first grade exam, this was actually really helpful, even if the software isn’t, by any means, the best.
Have a nice day!
Good Idea But Do Not Purchase
Overall the structure and content of the app is great. I have only completed tasks for Grades 1 and 2 but, based on this experience, would not recommend purchase. This is because it suffers from development/test flaws that make it hard to use and frustrating. In particular:
1. The Differences section repeatedly fails to register when you tap to note a Difference. This has been raised in numerous previous comments and has not been corrected.
2. All sections do not consistently record progress. Sometimes you get a “you have increased your progress” note and after completing an exercise successfully and sometimes you do not. Also, the Echoes section sometimes notes progress if you assess yourself as “yellow” but sometimes does not.
3. I have found it impossible to complete any exercise because, after a number of attempts, the app simply stops recording progress. No matter how many more examples you complete, it no longer gives an “an increased progress message” and leaves your progress on the summary at c. 66% completion.
The app is not free and you will not get a refund if you buy it. Therefore, since these things means it does not fulfil its function, you should not purchase until you see comments that show they have been sorted out.
Bad
So there’s quite a few bugs with this app
- The sight-singing exercise is oddly marked, I’ve only ever gotten a few notes ticked ever and usually they give me none right (and I’m using this for my grade 5 singing!)
- The sight-singing exercise also has a supposed tuner feature which I believe to be at the bottom but it doesn’t seem to do anything
- The tapping rhythm is overly harsh, you could be just one quaver out and it would fail you which isn’t good if you’re trying to get a realistic sense of what you would get in an exam
- It’s not compatible with my headphones i.e. it refuses to recognise them and plays the sound out loud which is fine
- The app overall is not designed intuitively and takes a while to get the hang of which would be hard if you’re not tech savvy
There are some pros!
- The melody repetition exercises are fine and you can grade your own performance, checking your recording against the original
- The musical features exercise is good (however you are limited in your answers)
Overall if you struggle with identifying the styles of musical pieces or melody repetition I would get this app, otherwise it’s not worth the money
App Privacy
The developer, The Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music (Publishing) Limited, indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy.
Data Not Linked to You
The following data may be collected but it is not linked to your identity:
- User Content
- Identifiers
- Usage Data
- Diagnostics
Privacy practices may vary based on, for example, the features you use or your age. Learn More
Information
- Provider
- The Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music (Publishing) Limited
- Size
- 429.2 MB
- Category
- Education
- Compatibility
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- iPhone
- Requires iOS 12.0 or later.
- iPad
- Requires iPadOS 12.0 or later.
- iPod touch
- Requires iOS 12.0 or later.
- Apple Vision
- Requires visionOS 1.0 or later.
- Languages
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English
- Age Rating
- 4+
- Copyright
- © The Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music (Publishing) Limited
- Price
- £7.99
- In-App Purchases
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- Bonus bundle £1.99
Supports
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Family Sharing
Some in‑app purchases, including subscriptions, may be shareable with your family group when Family Sharing is enabled.