OpenEar vs LeadingTone
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
OpenEar
This app offers a variety of exercises designed to improve musicians' aural skills, focusing on tonal music. It helps users master recognizing musical patterns through exercises like scale degree and chord identification, and progression analysis.
- Scale Degree Identification
- Chord Function Identification
- Common Progressions
- Chord Types
- Scale Degrees with Chords
- Triad Inversions
- Intervals
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OpenEar is the open source ear training app for musicians. It's goal is to provide a flexible variety of exercises with emphasis on tonal music so musicians will be able to master recognizing any musical pattern that might help them become better musicians. Currently includes the following exercises: 1. Scale Degree Identification 2. Chord Function Identification (identify chords in roman numeral analysis) - the only app in the world that allow this! 3. Common Progressions 4. Chord Types - including settings for root degrees per type so you can practice only common types in a tonal context 5. Scale Degrees with Chords - absolutely revolutionary exercise that help develop both scale degree and chord identification in tonal context. 6. Triad inversions - identify a position of a closed voiced triad 7. Intervals - the classic atonal intervals exercise. Not recommended for beginners as research shows that apart from advance usecases, intervals are not effective in developing good aural skills in tonal music. Check out our GitHub page for contribution and feedback: https://github.com/ShacharHarshuv/open-ear
LeadingTone
Enhance your musical abilities with this application. It offers ear training and music theory lessons to deepen your understanding and perception of music.
- Music theory lessons
- Ear training exercises
- Improved musical perception
- Skill enhancement
- Understanding of music
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LeadingTone app aims to improve your musical skills. Join us for a better understanding of music theory and enhanced musical perception through ear training and more.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: OpenEar at 4.3 against LeadingTone's 4.0. OpenEar also leads on review sentiment (63% vs 50%). LeadingTone's advantage is update cadence (fortnightly vs monthly). On price, ratings volume, ads and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
OpenEar holds the better App Store score, 4.3 against 4.0. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 12 and 5 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 63% of OpenEar's written reviews are positive against 50% of LeadingTone's.
OpenEar ships an update monthly, LeadingTone fortnightly. The most recent releases landed on October 24, 2026 and September 29, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | OpenEar | LeadingTone |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.3 (12 ratings) — better | 4.0 (5 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 62.5% of reviews — better | 50.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 12 — better | 5 |
| Update frequency | Monthly | Fortnightly — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 14.0 | 13.4 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 106 MB | 67 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Shachar Har-Shuv | Alon Fibert |
Customer experience
OpenEar
LeadingTone
In-app purchases
OpenEar
No in-app purchases
LeadingTone
No in-app purchases
