• each game divides the total skill into many small parts
• the pace of each game is controlled by student response time
• each game has four levels: very easy, easy, moderate, and difficult
• a student can choose to advance through the stages of each game
• fluency and total ownership of music concepts is required to complete a game

The following is a note naming drill (java applet):

Name the Damn Note

 

For Windows:

Free game download: quintus.zip

The quintus game is a musical version of the popular Tetrus game. A player must respond to musical contour.

Demo Software for Windows:

Inner Hearing Unit ONE: 130 Folk Melodies

Inner Hearing Unit TWO: 100 Melodies of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven

Rhythmic Hearing

        What is the company Musical Hearing all about?  What makes its software different?  If you have looked at other Ear Training Software packages, you may have asked "Where's the Music?"  Programs created by other software companies often play single intervals, single chords, and possibly other randomly generated musical materials.  In my opinion, this creates two problems: 1)the musical material is not interesting and so the program is therefore uninteresting and 2)the user can learn to name intervals or chords in isolation but not in a larger and more realistic situation.

        My main objective in writing the software that is now available from Musical Hearing was to provide valid musical materials and larger musical contexts in which to learn.  Inner hearing plays complete melodies.  Unit One plays Folk melodies; Unit Two contains 100 melodies of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven.  It is my opinion that these musical materials are far more interesting than those of other Ear Training Programs.  It is worth the time it takes to learn one of Beethoven's melodies.  It is not, in my opinion, worth the time to learn a totally abstract randomly generated melody.

        In contrast, the MusicGamesOne program adopts a randomly generated series of notes, key signatures, and intervals, but in a video game format which is appealing to today's High School and College students. The bottom line is that my software is intended to capture the interest and excitement of students, whether by use of great music or of an interactive game format.

        My background is that of a College Ear Training and Theory teacher.  The central core of the way I teach music was learned during a 1975-76 Ford Foundation Fellowship program to study in Hungary.  I owe everyone connected with this program my sincere thanks.  Teaching principles I learned in Hungary are reflected in the design of the software.

Guide to Ear Training Software:

http://www.msu.edu/user/spangle9/

Generally Commercial Ear Training Software:

http://www.ars-nova.com/
http://www.earmaster.com/
http://www.earpower.com/
http://www.eartraining.com/
http://www.ilovemusic.com/ear.htm
http://www.janasoftware.co.uk/
http://www.keystrokepublishing.com/
http://members.tscnet.com/pages/carner/
http://www.mibac.com/
http://www.miditec.com/
http://www.musicgoals.com/
http://www.musicstudy.com/
http://www.triplets.com/

Free Ear Training Software:

http://webpages.charter.net/kavol/kavol.htm
http://www.cstp.umkc.edu/personal/bhugh/eartest/eartest.htm
http://www.good-ear.com/
http://www.harmony-central.com/Software/
http://www.hitsquad.com/smm/cat/EAR_TRAINING/
http://www.MacintoshOS.com/shareware.library/educational/music.shtml
http://www.musicstudy.com/MusFun.html
http://www.musictheory.net/
http://www.sheetmusic1.com/EAR.TRAINING.HTML
http://www.wmich.edu/mus-theo/etg/et_guide.html
http://www.worldvillage.com/~jchuang/Ear/

Both Free and Commercial Ear Training Software:

http://cctr.umkc.edu/user/bauera/et.html
http://www.mibac.com/Pages/Theory/Main_Theory.htm