EarMan app for iPhone and iPad

4.4 ( 6144 ratings )

Music Education
Developer: RoGame Software

4.99 USD

Current version: 1.7.9, last update: 1 year ago
First release : 27 Mar 2009
App size: 29.3 Mb

A good ear is the key to all musicianship. One of the most basic skills for any musician is the ability to correctly identify intervals, something that is practiced in class or with a private tutor. EarMan is a program that helps you practice ear training on the go. This is an affordable, no-nonsense application that can help you improve your skills with a structured curriculum and fully customizable practice sessions. Completing a training session in EarMan takes about 1-2 minutes, only a fraction of a typical tutored lesson. All sessions are graded immediately and results are made available in the results section of the application.

A major key concept in EarMan is that of the interval set. Taking sevenths as an example, a session will first test you on major and minor sevenths. Eventually however unisons and octaves will be introduced as well and finally complementary intervals. But beginners need not worry about the terminology of ear training. Before any session, the answer buttons (and mostly there are only two at first) can be used to play back any interval so one can easily memorize it. All thats left then is matching a sound to a button. Naming the intervals eventually becomes second nature.

There are two basic training modes in EarMan, the Quick Session and the Curriculum.
Quick Sessions offer a way for spot learning. Interval set, range and playback direction are configured on the fly. These sessions are available at any time and can used to practice just in between or to prepare for the next Curriculum session.
EarMans Curriculum on the other hand is a structured lesson plan of 105 sessions that begins with one interval set in a narrow range. Once a Curriculum session is completed with a grade of 80% or higher the next interval set is introduced, eventually the range is widened and the playback mode advanced.

Much thought went into the design of this application. There are high resolution playback samples, a "calm interface" designed to keep you focussed on the sound, interval songs to help memorize the base intervals, but above all EarMan is meant to be a constant companion. Like many things ear training needs to be done on a regular basis to truly yield results and that makes EarMan an ideal application for the iPhone.

EarMan main features:
* Structured Training Program with 105 Sessions
* Fully Configurable Quick Sessions
* High Quality Samples
* Music Notation
* Silent Mode (for Practicing Intervals Visually)
* Interval Songs as Mnemonic Aid
* Calm Interface
* Incorporation of Complementary Intervals
* Selectable Playback Range and Direction
* Automatic Grading of Sessions
* Detailed Reports
* Localized into English, French, Italian, Japanese, German and Spanish

To read more about this application or to view additional screenshots and videos clips visit the website indicated below. You also might want to download EarMans free companion application EarTester. It tests your ear training skills at a proficiency level achieved when completing the EarMan curriculum.

Pros and cons of EarMan app for iPhone and iPad

EarMan app good for

I bought this after trying the free ear tester--it has the flexibility and sound quality to make a very effective tool for interval training. the portability is key to its usefulness.

Great app. Professionally done with nice extras such as playing a melody to show you how minor differs from major for different intervals. The interface is also clean and intuitive.

Some bad moments

This would be a quality product if not for one glaring oversight; it shows the note names that are played with no way to turn them off! This means that for anyone familiar with music theory, you can get the answer without having to listen! As someone good enough to know some intervals at sight, this is a huge problem. There also are not as many features as you might like. Would a chord progression section and scale degree program been too difficult to add? Purchase only if you are prepared to block the notation with your thumb, and as a on-the-go supplement to a more complete ear training program.

Im a fan of musical interval trainers -- I had a free one on my Palm PDA some years ago, and it was really helpful. So I kept expecting a nice, full-featured free for iPhone, but had not found anything comprable. After looking at EarMan, I decided to download, but thought with the high price, it would be a really wonderful application (afterall, I had once had a free one that was pretty darn great). Just the opposite, EarMan seems less intuitive and user-friendly than the one I had years ago. Very disappointing. I cant for the life of me figure why they charge so much for so little. I recently paid the same price for the MLB app, and get all kinds of goodies in that package. Here, its just basic stuff, and a little awakward to use to boot. For one thing, I dont see any way to disable the staff showing the notes of the interval thats being played. So, its hard not to see the graphical answer to the musical question which kind of defeats the purpose of the app. Seems like a pretty obvious oversight...

Write review