Functional Ear Trainer vs Aural Skills Training

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.

Practice your ear training with Aural Skills Trainer! Learn from the ground up and test yourself on these topics: - Intervals - Chords - Scales - Melodic Dictation - Rhythm ------ HARMONY ------ NEW!!! Download now and start the path to becoming a better musician, prepare for the AP Music Theory test or music class, or just open your ears and improve your musicianship! Benefits: - Training section to get ear training started: review the basics of intervals, chords and scales, and practice individual examples of each of those topics until you’ve mastered them - Musical examples for context and hearing how each big idea fits together - Ear training quiz questions with immediate feedback - Listen as many times as needed to the questions and answers to reinforce what you’re hearing - Developed by music theorists with ear training teaching experience - AP Music Theory contains a significant listening component (including melodic dictation) and this will help you practice as much as needed More details: Music takes practice, but nobody can do it alone and we’re here to help. Are you a student looking to work on your aural skills, ear training or musicianship class? Have you been a lifelong musician and want a chance to learn more about the music you’ve been playing? Or maybe you're a curious music lover? You’re in the right place! You’ll have a chance to learn about intervals, chords, scales, melodic dictation and common practice era harmonies with our training section. Then you’ll get to practice what you learned with our quiz mode. We have relevant examples with musical context to help make what you're listening to fun and interesting. Difficulty settings allow you to focus on your current ability. For example, if you’re already comfortable with major and minor chords, skip straight to 7th chords. If chords feel like too much for now, start with going over intervals first and work your way up. You can limit what you get quizzed on: if you prefer to focus only on what’s introduced in a higher difficulty (the intermediate scale difficulty is primarily modes and pentatonic scales, for instance), you can be quizzed on just that. Or you can make the quiz cumulative and include all the easier difficulties as well as the one selected. Fine tune for your learning! Box Metaphor Studios is committed to providing a musical experience to help you become a more well-rounded musician. We are always open to feedback on our musical goals, as well as any other comments or concerns around our app. Thanks for including us in your musical journey. Any issues or concerns? Contact us at support@boxmetaphorstudios.com or check out https://boxmetaphorstudiosinfo.com for additional information. Based in Salt Lake City, Utah. The team that made this possible: Nathan Foxley, M.M., music theorist, full-stack developer Steven Mathews, Ph.D., music theorist James Lloyd, designer, artist Derek Schaible, church organist