ET - Ear Trainer

Yet another ear-training app? Well, this one is different!

Playing jazz, pop and improvised music means being able to quickly recognize and replay what you hear. Although this app began as an ear-training tool for students of jazz and pop at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK), it is also intended for musicians playing in other styles, and at all levels. It was developed by Swiss IT specialist and jazz trumpeter Daniel Schenker, professor at ZHdK, in collaboration with his son Elia.

How it works

The app offers a host of ear-training exercises, many of them quite enjoyable, all designed to enhance both active and passive hearing. Active hearing means reproducing what you have heard on an instrument or with your voice, while passive hearing refers to the ability to identify such things as the scales, triads and four-note-chords, tensions and slash chords, on which active hearing is based. One of the features that make our app so special is the fact that its microphone enables a sort of dialogue between the app and the musician – whether on voice, brass and reed instruments, guitar, piano or electric bass. Unlike other apps, this one uses an integrated voicing generator to ensure that the chords played (position, voicing) correspond to the actual performance situation. In addition, the app uses a detailed educational guidance system, which allows users to individually customize the exercises. You can obtain over 280 achievements. Compete with other users and publish your high scores and trophies!

Active exercises (microphone)

- Five-tone range imitation, major and minor: suitable for younger students or amateurs

- Diatonic imitation: reproduction of notes in a particular key, vocally or on an instrument

- Atonal imitation: improvement of relative or referential hearing

- Tone sequences (2 - 6 tones)

- Intervals

- Resolution game: technique for the improvement of downward interval singing or playing

- Bass imitation exercises: double bass notes and root notes of various chords are to be reproduced vocally or on an instrument, a central skill that is often underdeveloped

- Sing or replay chord tensions (e.g. #9, b13)

- Scales sandbox: imitation practice in tonal spaces from over 40 different scales

- Tonal memory game

Passive exercises (identification practice)

- Intervals / Interval series

- Triads/four-note-chords in root position and inversion; top note positions

- Four-note-chords with one tension (17 types) and with two tensions (15 types)

- All 12 major and minor triads above a root note (slash chords/hybrids)

- Identification of scales, modes and over 140 jazz, pop and classical chord progressions

Depending on the setting, the chords can also be played arpeggiated.

The app supports Bluetooth MIDI (iPhones only).

For whom is the app intended?

- Singers both amateur and professional who want to incorporate (noteless) ear training exercises into their practice programme.

- Musicians in primary and secondary school, musicians and singers preparing for university entrance exams (practical theory), and conservatory students

- Musicians and singers of all genres, especially jazz/pop/rock, who want to freshen up or expand their chord vocabulary

- Brass players: control in mouthpiece exercises (buzzing)