These are all good exercises that help you build a solid foundation, but they can sometimes cause motivation to dip being somewhat clinical in nature.

So what I usually do is compile a list of melodic hooks from popular songs my students enjoy. Every so often, we’ll play them and let the student try to pick them out on the piano or their instrument of choice. I find that the satisfaction they get from being able to recreate a familiar pop‑culture melody really helps spark their interest in getting better at playing by ear, which in turn motivates them to stick with the exercises.

Shameless plug but I built a unique game specifically to help some of my more classically trained friends get better at playing piano by ear.

It's a free piano game in the style of the old "Simon" toy which presents players with increasingly longer sequences of musical notes and challenges them to reproduce the sequence using either an on-screen piano or connected MIDI keyboard. It also works with acoustic instruments through the mic.

https://lend-me-your-ears.specr.net

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adamddev1 6 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

This is quite a nice idea and works well, but I think I would rather spend the time listening to and imitating real Miles Davis solos etc.

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smeej 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Just testing out practice mode, I found what I really wanted was to be able to stay at a certain level until I felt I was getting good at sequences of that length, not immediately get pushed to the next level every time even when it took me 8 tries to get the 4-note sequence right. Give me a chance to feel like I'm improving! Don't just keep giving me harder things when I keep struggling with the existing ones.

	▲	vunderba 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		It already has that feature! :) It’s just not very obvious. If you click the small lock icon near the top, it will snap and to that difficulty so you can practice only sequences with that specific number of notes.

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raincole an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

First of all, thank you for making it free!

I'm completely new to ear training. Could you give some advice on what a newbie should think while doing this? For example, should I try to sing the thing in solfeges in my head, or it's considered bad practice? And if I do, should I sing the first note as Do?

	▲	vunderba 33 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		So the only problem is that until you've internalized the intervals a bit better, you might get frustrated trying to sing out solfege since you might say "re" when the note was "mi" in the context of the key signature and that might reinforce a bad intervalic relationship. However you could still hum/whistle the pitches as an assistive tool. If you’d like to make things a bit easier, you can go into the options and restrict the key signature. That way you can keep it simple and just practice in a more common keys like one major scale like C major and its relative minor, A minor. Where I really recommend "singing" out each note is when I'm teaching my students to improvise on the piano since it creates a sort of intentionality about what you’re about to hear and sing. For example, if they had a chord progression or melodic idea in mind but accidentally played a wrong note, they’ll notice right away because what they’re singing won’t match what they’re playing. Whereas if you don’t sing or whistle the notes as you play your instrument, you might not notice that you’re drifting off from what you actually intended to play because within the confines of the key signature it might still sound melodically acceptable (if that makes sense).

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swestwood an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This is really simple and great!! Thanks for not stuffing it with ads.

Is there a way to make it work a bit better for phones? On mobile Safari, just tapping to enable sound doesn’t seem to work until I reload and tap again.

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sebastiansm7 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This is very fun!

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apercu an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

I think this is smart. I have never done ear training apps because I just don't like to learn music that way - it doesn't "stick" for me.

I like to learn in the context of a song. Here's what a melody sounds like when you start it over the 1 of a chord. Here's a melody when you start it on the 3 over a chord. But, again, in the context of a known song.

I just don't think "non-musical" exercises have ever moved me forward as a musician, if that makes sense.

	▲	vunderba an hour ago \| parent [-]
		I’m with you. I rarely use mechanical drills, even though I recognize that they can sometimes have value (cough Hanon cough), especially when you’re focusing on ergonomics. I tend instead to focus on things my student already enjoys, because it gives them a grounding. Another trick I like to do is take a popular song, rip out the melody, and keep the chord progression. Then I’ll usually scaffold a nice accompaniment using Band-in-a-Box so the student has something looping in the background while they try to piece out the original melody themselves on their respective instrument. That can sometimes give them more guidance, since it locks them into a specific key signature and helps them feel the flow and explore the space.