Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)I love this software. I'm a pretty crappy guitarist who decided to go back to the basics and learn some music theory (which I'm doing via the "absolutely understand guitar" DVD set by Scotty West -- I recommend that product as well -- the presenter has a tendency to ramble and excessively repeat himself but ultimately the material is solid and a lot of things are starting to click so it was worth hanging in there). Anyway, this software is a perfect complement to your music theory studies. I think that unless you're just lucky to be born with a natural talent, you're going to need some dictation of intervals, chords, scales, and rhythm to atune your ear to how they sound. Playing it on your own instrument isn't as effective because you can't help using your eyes and fingers as a crutch. With this software, you have nothing but your ears to find the answer.
Some small nits to pick, which I'm writing here hoping that emedia will read this and include in its next upgrade: (1) the sounds are pretty crappy and hardly like the instruments they're supposed to represent. I'd rather get a choice of three instruments (say, piano, violin and steel string acoustic guitar) that sound realistic than 60+ crappy MIDI ones. (2) I wish an exercise were included that helps you train absolute pitch. For this, I think the Deburgh method is good. It starts by playing two notes (Eb and F#) and you have to listen in to the character of each and once you can distinguish them you progress to other/additional notes. (3) Another thing that I would find extremely useful is if the scale identification (which is what I'm working on now) could be expanded beyond ascending/descending. My hunch is that a program could be written to pick out notes from a scale in a sequence that still sounds relatively musical (following some musical rules). Or alternatively, plenty of examples (a couple of hundred, so you can't rely on memory) could be stored of existing music pieces in those scales. Ultimately, I would like to be able to hear something on the radio and be able to pick up by the character of the music that it's in this or that scale/mode (even if I can't tell the pitch) and the included exercise (just ascending/descending) is a bit too easy.
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EarMaster 5If you want to sing, improvise or jam with complete confidence, you need to recognize all the sounds around you. Ear training can make this possible. Making music with others will become easy and fun! EarMaster is your personal teacher. It is easy to use and provides instant feedback. EarMaster includes a Standard Tutor with over 400 lessons as well as a Jazz Tutor with over 200 lessons. Both will guide you and automatically increase in difficulty as your ear improves. Create your own customized exercises to improve the way you play, compose and notate any style of music!
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