Perfect Ear – Android app for Testing & Improving your Musical ‘Ear’
by Paul Wilks
Feb 6, 2012 9:31 AM –
Install
Perfect Ear is a useful tool for musicians who want to improve their ability to hear and identify sounds; their musical ‘ear’. The app comes with a set number of exercises and different instruments to play in order to test your ability.
Price: Free, $0.99 for the full version
Tested on: HTC Desire HD
Content Rating: Everyone
Pros & Cons:
Pros
- Lots of variants, exercises and tests!
- Gorgeous user interface!
- Singing mode!
Cons
- Sounds are synthesised; not real piano or guitar sounds.
- Not for beginners. You might need to know your Triads from your Mixolydians before you start.
Features:
Perfect Ear is a useful tool for professional and aspiring musicians to help them train up their ears to identify a variety of musical notes, chords, duration, etc. The tests are presented in an easy-to-understand list and as you move down they get progressively harder.
When you enter a test you see the particular instrument you have chosen (in Settings you can choose between a Piano, Guitar or Bass Guitar). Below this you can press play and listen to the test piece. You then have a question with an answer button, on the right hand side of the screen. Occasionally there is a multiple choice question and if you get the answer correct the app will tell you.
There is a pretty cool ‘Interval Singing’ mode which plays you a sound for you to sing back. It will then mercilessly tell you if you got it right or not. I failed quite spectacularly on a wide number of occasions, but I’m sure you will do better. 
The app is wrapped in a beautifully developed user interface which looks utterly superb. I was however, quite disappointed to see (rather ‘hear’) that the sounds were synthesised. While the notes sound ‘sort of’ like a piano or a guitar it’s clearly just a keyboard note. We reviewed Jimi Guitar and, while it’s purpose is very different, the sound quality was far better. For understanding notes alone this, I guess, isn’t really a big issue, but it does make the experience feel a little less authentic.
I should also perhaps suggest that Perfect Ear is in no way for beginners. There is a certain amount of musical jargon in the app which you will need to understand to get the most from it… either that or you get a good musical dictionary!
Watch on Mobile
-
-
Perfect Ear – Clear and smart UI
-
-
Perfect Ear – Multiple choice questions
-
-
Perfect Ear – Chord identification on guitar
-
-
Perfect Ear – Set tempos
-
-
Perfect Ear – Main menu
-
-
Perfect Ear – Initial navigation tutorial
-
-
Perfect Ear – Instrument select
-
-
Perfect Ear – Settings
Usefulness:
If you are a professional, amateur or aspiring musician- Perfect Ear is a great app to test your musical ‘ear’; how well you identify chords, notes, intervals, etc. It will even listen to your voice to see how pitch perfect your singing is! A useful and fun app for improving your musical ear.
Ease of Use:
The app is very easy to use, more so if you understand the musical language it uses.
Frequently Used:
This will depend wholly on the user, how much they play and how much they need to develop their ‘perfect ear’.
Interface:
The user interfaces is seriously impressive. Responsive, fast and highly polished, and fun to use.
Tags:
Android App,
Android Apps,
AndroidTapp.com App Review,
Guitar,
Music,
Perfect Ear,
Piano,
Score,
Tuition
Categorised in: Education
Submit apps for review,
promote apps, get more installs with better
app videos.