Inside Look| The Tool Box of an Ear Trainer

I'm not a professional ear trainer by any means, what I mean by that term is that I am undertaking the journey of one who wishes to be able to play by ear, simply becoming someone who trains their ear to become in tune with the mind and body.

Some of you have already decided to take this same journey, but somewhere along the way you've been camping out for days, weeks, months...( dare I say years?) because of some problems in your own toolkit that have been dragging you behind, you might feel at this point that you have some dead weight to get rid of before moving on- just what are the essential tools do you need to help you learn how to play what you hear and nothing more?

Now I'm not here to tell you what the best ear training software is, nor the best ear training guide or workout, as you'll slowly find out that the best regimen for one person is not always going to match perfectly with the needs of someone else.

Steps to aural training

So, the question you should ask yourself is: what is my own need, what do I mean when I say my goal is playing by ear - do I need to be more specific in order to find or create a guide that matches the steps I will take to arrive at this goal?

Many people want to "play by ear" and undergo "ear training", but they never explain beyond that - do you even know about absolute perfect pitch? How about relative pitch?

We'll stop there to give everyone some much needed time to think about a few things. Let's leave the rambling for our later walks in this journey and head back to the main subject of this post. What am I working with myself? I believe, by looking at the tools you're going to use along the way, you should be able to have an idea about the goal you're trying to reach. Want to guess mine?:

Ear Training Software

So far I've found these training tools to be useful in my journey. The funny thing is I, just like you, have had to camp out along the road and remove dead weight, such as "malfunctioning" tools that cause me to run around in circles - tools that are good in theory, but haven't gotten me to where I wanted to go. So during those camping out moments, I've had, and expect to continue to have to redefine my goals and make sure the map I was following lead me straight to them. So below are all the things I've come across while trying to reach my own unique approach to playing by ear.


The first tool in my toolbox is the Functional Ear Trainer Basic, by Alain Alain Benbassat.

The next tool is the ear trainer by Rick at http://www.iwasdoingallright.com

Last but not least is a guide from Forrest at jazzadvice.com on hearing intervals specifically.

So few tools, they must really pack a punch you might think. But I've only listed the online ear training software I've personally tested for my goal planning. I've come across far more tools than these, and there are other, offline, approaches that I know of that can help learning to play what you hear as well- I just have yet to use them, so when the time comes you'll get to know them, as well as have an idea of how they might help you after seeing how they're helping me.

With that, here is what I'm using for my regimen, in the posts to come you'll see how I use them, and get an unofficial review of these guys at the same time to answer your own questions of how they might work for you.