Functional Ear Trainer 4+

Ear training for everyone

Serhii Korchan

Designed for iPad

    • 4.9 • 541 Ratings
    • Free
    • Offers In-App Purchases

Screenshots

Description

Have you (or maybe one of your friends) ever wanted to learn to transcribe or play music by ear?

It is so important for a musician to know what you are hearing. A good musical ear helps when you are composing, improvising, transcribing melodies, or playing with others.

Most likely you have already tried different programs to learn to recognize intervals or even to acquire perfect pitch. However, although such programs develop your ear, but can you actually play any melody you hear as soon as you listen to it?

Imagine you could understand music... It is like when somebody is talking to you, you not only hear pleasant sounds, but you recognize words and their meaning.

One day I came across Alain Benbassat's program called "Functional Ear Trainer" and have been using it ever since. It is based on Alain's method to learn to recognize tones.

The main difference between the Functional Ear Trainer and other methods is that it teaches you to distinguish between tones in the context of a particular musical key. You begin to recognize the role (or function) of each tone in this key, which is incredibly similar to its role in other keys of the same scale.

And it is *guaranteed* anyone can gradually develop this skill. It does not matter:
- who you are - an absolute beginner in music or a virtuoso professional musician;
- how old you are - a 3 yo kid or a 90+ adult;
- what musical instrument you play (you don't even have to play one).

The only requirement is to practice for 10 minutes a day.

I was so excited about this ear trainer that I have developed a mobile app based on the Alain Benbassat method. I hope you will find it useful.

What’s New

Version 3.23.5

– Melodic Dictations
– Sound Plugins
– Listener Mode

Enjoy your ear training!

Ratings and Reviews

4.9 out of 5
541 Ratings

541 Ratings

Aspally ,

Useful with great customisation + error insights

Has a sensible programme of increasingly difficult challenges that have improved my pitch discrimination and solfege naming.

Gives a useful view of errors in the form of the proportion of trials that you get wrong on each note and what you mistakenly chose instead. I.e., you can use this information to guide future trials. There is also an option to make custom challenges, e.g. with a high density of notes that you find hard. It would be useful if this information were used automatically….eg, to create a higher proportion of tricky notes on the next session or a stand-alone custom challenge.

The notes seem to be chosen randomly, without replacement, which stamps out the expectation of particular notes based on what you’ve had so far.

There are choices in ways that the solfege names are represented on the keys. I found the default hard to get on with because ♯ (sharp) is represented as # (hash) and ♭ (flat) is represented as b (the letter). This means that you end up with keys that look like words, eg ‘Lab ’. I’ve changed the view to the Do, Di system (wouldn’t this be a better default?)

appjackpot ,

This developer understands the problem!

The thing that makes this app different from the rest is that it understands that our challenge with music is to hear notes and intervals WITHIN a tonality. But that is also our benefit - we hear notes because of their sympathy or not with the key and their proximity to a note which is sympathetic. I am obsessed with the idea that everyone can learn when asked EXACTLY the right question. This app will ask you that question. And you can customise it so it is extremely targeted. Well done user - you found the needle in the haystack!

david.maj7 ,

Helping finally click

I’ve tried ear training with apps before, not having put a mountain of effort in, but experiencing frustration when I’ve, after making seemingly solid progress, mistaken a perfect 5th for a major second or visa versa. And the more obscure intervals I might get a handle on during a session, but the feel wouldn’t crystallise between sessions.

The big difference with this app is the contextual mechanism it coaches you to employ, walking up or down the scale of the current ket to the nearest tonic. It’s simple, but for me has made a huge difference, to whereby having used the app for three days I’m correctly identifying obvious and a fair few of the more obscure intervals across sessions with good (not yet flawless) accuracy. And it doesn’t feel like I’m stumbling around in the dark!

All that and this app is free and well developed. There are a few glitches with the sound every so often when it’s like the processor wants to take a split-second nap, but other than that, it’s perfect.

Many thanks!

App Privacy

The developer, Serhii Korchan, 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 Linked to You

The following data may be collected and linked to your identity:

  • Purchases
  • Contact Info
  • Identifiers
  • Usage Data

Data Not Linked to You

The following data may be collected but it is not linked to your identity:

  • Identifiers
  • Diagnostics
  • Other Data

Privacy practices may vary based on, for example, the features you use or your age. Learn More

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