Ear Training Fundamentals: A Take on Ear Training Apps

Frank’s take on the usefulness of most Ear Training Apps… and what type of app you should download and use to tune up your ears…

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Prerequisites

LOVE of music and the discipline to study and practice the right things the right way.

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Lesson Goal

To use ear training apps to help you perform better, not to get better grades on an ear training test.

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Scope of this Commentary

This article is about Relative Pitch ear training, not Absolute Pitch which is a whole other animal. (Ref: Relative Pitch and Absolute Pitch).

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The Limitations of Ear Training Apps

In my experience most relative pitch ear training apps have very limited utility and can actually hinder your progress… for at least ten important reasons:

1. Most such apps typically present intervals without any meaningful musical context… that is, without any sense of tonality, harmony, meter, placement of notes within the meter, rhythm, or form.
2. Even for apps that do present pitches in a musical context, the context is typically too narrow and contrived to be useful for real repertoire.
3. Such apps do not typically engage all four musical intelligences–ears, intellect, eyes, and muscles.
4. Such apps do not typically require you to actively generate the music… whether by singing or playing.
5. Such apps typically ignore the fact that the musical meaning of a pitch or chord or sequence of pitches or chords is not just about how things sound, but about how they feel and function.
6. Apps that do a decent job of presenting meaningful sounds in context are typically too limited, clunky, and hard to use as you fuss with settings such as key, tempo, meter, register, timbre, style, etc.
7. Such apps may be effective, but effective does not necessarily mean useful. In other words, an app may train you to become quite skilled at doing something that doesn’t help you play better.
8. Almost every chunk of music is enjoyed, learned, and performed as its gestalt, the principle of perception that recognize that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Ear training apps are great at doing the parts, but not so great at doing the wholes.
9. The sound, feeling, and function of pitches, rhythms, scales, chords, and chord progressions can be internalized so much deeper and faster by using nothing more than your voice, the piano, and a rhythm track.
10. Once you understand the basic concepts of how music works, your precious time and energy are infinitely better spent getting your ear training directly from the music that YOU want to play… because those are the sounds and feelings you want to internalize and keep in your repertoire.

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Sidebar About Ear Training App Marketers

Frank has been approached several times over the years to “review” and receive compensation for promoting several widely touted ear training apps, all of which will remain nameless. In each and every case he’s graciously declined to do so for two important reasons: 1) They all fall short of what you can already accomplish faster and more effectively using just your voice and the piano for free, and 2) Doing so would violate the Piano-ology ethic of maintaining total independence from advertisers, and of saving visitors from the distraction and annoyance of advertisements of any kind.

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Advice: Download a Tuning App and Use It!

One type of app that is extremely valuable is a tuning app. Because singing in tune is an essential skill that greatly facilitates the internalization of the sound, feeling, and function of any pitch. We are not talking about developing perfect pitch. We are talking about pitch matching–the ability to play a note on the piano and then sing that note in tune with the note being played.

Frank routinely uses a tuning app that graphically shows how sharp or flat he’s singing in real time. This visual feedback is an extremely effective way to tune up your ears so that the sound you are hearing and feeling inside your head or outside your head is the sound that is coming out of your mouth. This easy to develop skill lays the foundation for hearing and feeling pitches in your mind’s ear.

Frank will not publicly tout any particular app, but email him (frank@piano-ology.com) and he’d be happy to tell you which one he likes and uses all the time.

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Takeaways Regarding Ear Training Apps

1. You don’t need a relative pitch ear training app.
2. Get a tuning app to check and develop your pitch matching skill when you sing out loud.
3. Once you understand the basics of how scales, chords, and chord progressions work, get your ear training directly from the music that YOU want to play.

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learn more… Ear Training Fundamentals