EarMaster Pro 5
© 2006 eMedia Music Corp.
This solid musical tutorial is like having your own personal music theory teacher in your Windows computer. The focus is ear training--the development of tone and chord discrimination skills. If you have these skills, it makes it easier to sing or play along to other melodies, or perhaps transcribe the next great symphony without needing a nearby piano keyboard. One disk contains 651 lessons organized into 12 areas, from interval comparison to melodic dictation. The program starts easy, with "which interval is the greater" (followed by two notes). The harder levels put the notes in the context of scales (lydian or mixolydian) or chord progressions. As you work, the challenge increases--although progress is not saved. In a typical easy problem, you hear two pairs of notes and then must decide which pair has the biggest interval. Features include: the ability to be played in 13 languages; 128 instrument sounds; an on-screen guitar, violin, bass and piano; and a second set of tutorials designed specifically for jazz. A full suite of MIDI features allows answers to be entered with any MIDI instrument (recommended for any extended use), but is not required in order to make the program function. Schools may be interested in EarMaster School--the same program with more management features, including the ability to create custom class lessons or track multiple students.
$69.95, Windows XP
Teaches: music, music theory, audio discrimination, rhythm, notation
CTR Rating: 90%