Melody Ear Training vs Functional Ear Trainer
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Melody Ear Training
Develop your musical ear with this engaging piano game. It helps improve interval recognition, pitch sense, and transcription skills. Suitable for both beginners and experienced musicians, it offers adjustable difficulty and MIDI integration.
- Interval recognition
- Pitch sense improvement
- Transcription skills
- MIDI keyboard integration
- Adjustable difficulty settings
- Customizable melody parameters
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***** Highly addictive piano game. ***** A fun way to develop a better musical ear! Great for experienced musicians and beginners. Music students love this app. ---- Melody Ear Training can help improve: • Interval recognition • Sense of pitch • Transcription skills • Improvising skills • Self esteem --- How to Play: • Tap "play" to hear the melody • To hear the melody again, tap "replay" • Use the piano to play the melody yourself • Play often to improve your score! --- MIDI In – Plug in your MIDI keyboard to enhance the experience! (Core MIDI compatible) MIDI Out – If you have a music instrument app (such as a synth) that can run in "background mode" and accepts virtual Core MIDI, you can play Melody Ear Training using the sounds of that app. --- Tips for the Beginners: Start with "2 Notes" for the melody length, set the difficulty to "Diatonic", and set the "Scale" to "C". Use the + and - keyboard range control to set the keyboard to a small range such as "C, D" or "C, D, E". Keep practicing, and as you progress you'll want to make the range larger. --- Tips for the Pros: Set "Feedback" to "Never" and turn on "Autoplay" to play continuously without ever missing a beat. Crank up the tempo to see how fast you can go! --- Melody Settings: Scale – 13 major scales Difficulty – Diatonic, Random Tonic, Chromatic Length – 2 to 6 notes Tempo – 60 to 320 BPM Keyboard Range – Starting at 2 notes in a major scale (ex. “C, D”) and up to 12 notes in a major scale (ex. “C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C, D, E, F, G”) with the ability to change octaves. Feedback – Set to "Never" to stop all messages. Set to "Wrong" if you only want messages for incorrect melodies. Sound – Set to "Piano" to hear the built-in piano sound. Set to "MIDI Out" to hear the sound of a music instrument app (such as a synth) that can run in "background mode" and accepts virtual Core MIDI. Autoplay – Turn on to always play the next melody immediately. Turn off if you want to play the keyboard freely between melodies. Key Labels – Turn off to remove note names on white keys. Allow Unison – Turn off if you don't want the same note to be played twice in a row. --- About the Difficulty Setting: "Diatonic" uses notes from a major scale. This setting is recommended. "Random Tonic" uses notes from a random major scale each time. "Chromatic" mode is the "extreme mode" where any combination of notes is possible. As a result, strange intervals like the Augmented 2nd (ex. F to G#) are possible. --- About the Score: Melody Ear Training is all about self progression. Tap the score to reset at any time. The game goes on forever and the music never ends! --- Can you guess the next note? Download the app to find out!
Functional Ear Trainer
Develop your musical ear by learning to recognize tones within the context of a specific musical key. This app helps you understand the function of each note, improving your ability to transcribe, improvise, and play music by ear. Suitable for all ages and skill levels, with just 10 minutes of daily practice.
- Recognize tones in musical key context
- Understand note function
- Improve transcription skills
- Enhance improvisation
- Develop perfect pitch
- Daily 10-minute practice
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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.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: Functional Ear Trainer at Free against Melody Ear Training's $9.99. Functional Ear Trainer also leads on ratings volume (3.7K vs 37) and rating (4.9 vs 4.6). Melody Ear Training's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 1) and iOS requirement (12.0 vs 15.0). On update cadence, ads and device support 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
Functional Ear Trainer is free to download; Melody Ear Training costs $9.99 up front. Functional Ear Trainer sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Melody Ear Training asks for nothing beyond the download.
Functional Ear Trainer holds the better App Store score, 4.9 against 4.6. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Functional Ear Trainer has 3.7K ratings behind it against 37, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 76% of Melody Ear Training's written reviews are positive against 96% of Functional Ear Trainer's.
Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly every 7 months. The most recent releases landed on October 14, 2026 and October 16, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Melody Ear Training | Functional Ear Trainer |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $9.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 4.6 (37 ratings) | 4.9 (3.7K ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 75.7% of reviews | 96.1% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 37 | 3.7K — better |
| Update frequency | Every 7 months | Every 7 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Free — better | Free with in-app purchases |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 12.0 — better | 15.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 295 MB | 41 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | 262Hz | Serhii Korchan |
Customer experience
Melody Ear Training
Functional Ear Trainer
Bugs and requests
Melody Ear Training
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
Functional Ear Trainer
Reported bugs
2 issues- Keyboard display issues when selecting all chromatic notes
- Inconsistent note resolutions in some exercises
Requested features
5 requests- Add support for multiple notes/chords at once
- Implement a mode for training key recognition
- Provide more customization options for exercises
- Include voice input to play the notes
- Add support for German/Norwegian key names
In-app purchases
Melody Ear Training
No in-app purchases
Functional Ear Trainer
- Functional Ear Trainer Plus$19.99
Questions
Is Melody Ear Training free?
Is Functional Ear Trainer free?
Which has better reviews, Melody Ear Training or Functional Ear Trainer?
Do Melody Ear Training or Functional Ear Trainer have ads?
Which is updated more often, Melody Ear Training or Functional Ear Trainer?
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