Solfa Hands vs Ear Training
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Solfa Hands
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Solfa Hands is a sight-reading and sight-singing trainer for music teachers and their students. Reading a score and singing it in tune are one skill, and Kodály hand signs are what joins them: each sign gives an abstract note on the page a shape your body can feel, so pitch stops being guesswork. Solfa Hands puts the notation, the solfege syllable, and the hand sign on screen together, and keeps them together from your first sol–mi to a full major-scale melody. *SIGHT-READ FROM REAL NOTATION Read from a scrolling five-line staff with note heads, rests and barlines, or switch to circles on a simplified staff or the color grid while the reading habit is still forming. Note labels can show solfege, note names, numbers — or nothing at all, once you're ready to read the staff unaided. A piano keyboard lights up alongside the score so every interval you read has a sound attached. *SIGHT-SING WITH YOUR CAMERA CHECKING YOU — NEW Turn on Assessment and sing the score at sight while the app watches your hand signs. The score waits at each note until your sign is right, then sounds it and moves on — so you can't skim past an interval you haven't actually heard. Feedback is specific: a tucked thumb, a finger that should be curled, a hand held at the wrong angle. Recognition runs entirely on your device; no camera video ever leaves your iPhone or iPad. *A FULL KODÁLY READING SEQUENCE About 200 exercises across six stages, ordered the way sight-singing is actually taught: sol–mi first, then la, do and re to complete the pentatonic set, with fa, ti and high do finishing the major scale. Each stage adds exactly one pitch, then widens the intervals, lengthens the phrases and varies the shape — ascending, descending, arch, echo, sequence, and real tunes — so reading difficulty grows one step at a time. *FOR THE CLASSROOM AND FOR HOME • Three score views: staff notation, circles, or grid • Four label modes, for scaffolding reading and then removing it • Tempo from 50 to 240 BPM with a four-beat count-in • Boy and girl singing voices • Rests, one- and two-beat notes, looping playback • Portrait and landscape, iPhone and iPad • English and Chinese *WRITE YOUR OWN READING DRILLS Build a melody note by note and save it to your library — useful for setting the exact interval a student keeps missing. The library keeps the course path and your own songs side by side as readable score thumbnails; one tap loads any of them. Course stages 1 and 2 are free to play. One purchase unlocks playback for every later stage and for your own songs — no subscription, no ads, no account.
Ear Training
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Most ear trainers hand everyone the same random list of intervals. This one watches which ones YOU get wrong — and builds your practice from that. Every answer lands in a confusion grid. Rows are what was played, columns are what you picked. After a few rounds the grid shows the truth about your ear: maybe you never miss a fifth, but a major sixth and a minor seventh trade places again and again. That cell turns hot, and practice starts coming from there. HOW IT WORKS • Ten-question rounds. Listen, pick what you heard. That's the whole loop. • The grid fills in as you go. Tap any hot cell to drill that one pair until it cools down. • When you miss, you hear both — the right answer and your pick, from the same starting note, back to back. That comparison is where the ear actually learns. • Practice is chosen from three things: what's due for review, which pairs you confuse, and what you haven't seen yet. It's weighted, not a fixed order, so answers never fall into a guessable pattern. • 42 items: twelve intervals ascending, descending and harmonic, plus six chord qualities. The set starts small and opens up as you improve. BUILT FOR PRACTICE, NOT FOR SHOW • Pick your register — low, middle, high, or any mix. No more questions buried so low you can't hear them. • Soft or bright tone, synthesised on the device. • Name things your way: short (m3), full (minor 3rd) or solfège. • Timer pressure is off by default. Turn it on when you want it. • 46 achievements and a daily streak, if that's what keeps you coming back. • A daily reminder at a time you choose — and it stays quiet on days you've already practised. HONEST ABOUT WHAT IT TEACHES These drills train RELATIVE pitch: hearing the distance between notes, which is the skill that actually reads a chord chart or transcribes a melody. It won't promise to make you name notes out of thin air, and it says nothing about your hearing — it's a music practice app, nothing more. PRIVATE AND OFFLINE Everything is synthesised and stored on your device. No account, no server, no tracking. Your grid is yours. Ear Training Pro unlocks practice rounds. The grid, your history, your stats and all settings stay open — free or not, your own data is never locked away. • A recurring subscription, with the first period at a reduced price • Or a one-time purchase that never renews Terms of Use: https://doesonejob.com/eargrid/terms/ Privacy Policy: https://doesonejob.com/eargrid/privacy/ Questions: eargrid@doesonejob.com
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Solfa Hands at none against Ear Training's 4. Solfa Hands also leads on iOS requirement (15.6 vs 17.0). On price, 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
Both are free to download. Ear Training sells 4 in-app purchases, starting at $3.99 per 7 days. Solfa Hands asks for nothing beyond the download.
Solfa Hands ships an update every 3 weeks, Ear Training fortnightly. The most recent releases landed on October 25, 2026 and October 29, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Solfa Hands | Ear Training |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Update frequency | Every 3 weeks | Fortnightly — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 15.6 — better | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 29 MB | 11 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | 鑫 孟 | YUSUF OCAL |
In-app purchases
Solfa Hands
No in-app purchases
Ear Training
- Ear Training Pro · Weekly7 Days trial$3.997 Days
- Ear Training Pro · Monthly$7.991 Month
- Ear Training Pro · Yearly$14.991 Year
- Ear Training Pro · Lifetime$19.99









