EarMaster Pro 6 [Old Version]

It arrived quickly. When I tried to used it, I was bothered by being required to activate since my Internet connection is pretty poor and sometimes these things time out before anything happens. However it was a very quick process.On getting started I found the user interface to be easy and the activities, which might be better described as drills than lessons, are fun. I have made very good progress in a short space of time, and expect to continue. This software will be with me for a long time.The courses are:1. Interval comparison, a set of A or B questions asking the user to determine the greater of two intervals played either as chords or intervals. Starts off with unison and seconds and progressively includes more intervals.2. Interval identification. similar to the above.3. Interval singing. I have not tried this yet, as I have not got a microphone, but I would imagine it is like the two previous activities.4.Chord Identification. Chords are played as arpeggios or chords. Questions ask whether the chords heard are either major or minor. Then sus4 chords are added and so on.5. Chord inversions. Asks the user to identify which inversion of a chord is being played.6. Chord progressions. Again a series of progressive multiple choice tests. Starts off with obvious stuff like majors and minors, but quickly moves on to dim7s and chords with b5 and b9. As the jazzier chords came in, I found the only way to get there was to figure out the answers at a keyboard. Time-consuming, but valuable for the musician whose aural skills are not exceptional.7. Scale identification. Not there yet. I would suppose this is a progressive activity kicking off with major scales and running on to the various minors, modes and synthetic scales.8. Rhythmic sight-reading. Asks the user to tap a rhythm scored on the screen against a metronomic beat provided by the software. Speed of metronome is variable. The beats provided by the user are marked on the score and uses arrows to show whether the taps vary from being dead on the metronome. Again progressive. Would be a very good way to start learning to read music from scratch.9. Rhythmic imitation. Similar to the above, but the software plays a rhythm which the user copies.10. Rhythmic dictation. The third side to the triangle formed by the previous to rhythm exercises. A beat is played which the user scores on the screen.11. Rhythmic Error Detection. Not tried yet, but I would suppose these are exercises in finding discrepancies between written and sounded rhythms.12. Melodic sight singing. Due to not having a mic, I have not tried this, but suppose it will be similar to number 1413. Melody imitation. Probably singing back a played melody.14. Melodic dictation. Scoring played notes by ear. Starts of using only the first two notes of the major scale and progressively adds notes.After the "classical" Lessons described above, the jazz mode has courses similar to #s 4, 6, and 8 through 14 listed above.I have been looking for this kind of drilling training for many years and this, so far, has satisfied all my expectations.As a side note, I would also say that my ear was re-educated electronically by the Tomatis method many years ago. I did this because I was working with a speech therapist as an English teacher for her clients who had had their ears opened by the use for filtered sounds, vibrators passing sounds directly through the skull thus bypassing the normal hearing filters and other fairly freaky methods. The Tomatis method is widely regarded by academics as nonsense, probably in part because Dr. Alfred Tomatis talks like a mystic instead of a doctor, but the results I saw, both in my language students and in myself were amazing. e.g. my voice immediately became much more resonant to the extent that my father did not recognise it when he phoned. Also my French accent went from being awful (people used to believe I was doing it on purpose) to reasonable, though still a long way from being passable as a native speaker. Having a reasonable, probably average, ability to process sounds gives me the basis for being able to profit from this course. I suspect there will be people whose hearing, that is to say brain processing of sounds, is so poor that even with a course like this, there ears will simply refuse to process the sounds and so will not benefit very much from the training.There is a good reason that the ear refuses to process sounds: it is very demanding of the attention. Immediately after learning to hear clearly - it was the aural equivalent of putting on new glasses - I found it more difficult to concentrate on such activities as abstract logic. Even today, I am more sensitive to noise interruptions than most people, but it is a trade off I am very happy to pay.

I used Ear Master Pro 5 years ago and realize that my ear was not developing, I stopped using the program. Then here comes EarMaster Pro 6. It boasts of its unique sight-singing and melody imitation feature. There is even a Youtube Video of Hans Jakobsen using the sight-singing feature. A little bit about my life. In my music program at York University, they had the first year students sight-singing and I was terrible at it, but wanting to improve. After the winter semester, I bought this program, thinking it will help me with my problems with singing pitches. However, due to technical difficulties with I don't know the microphone, the configuration, or basically my inexperience with singing pitches. It just defeats the purpose of why I bought this program.The program always marks my answers wrong in the sight-singing and melody imitation feature. Even simple do re mi melodies, even though I am singing the correct pitch, it would be marked as wrong. There was one time I spend 28 attempts singing literally a do re mi melody and it was marked as wrong. Makes me look stupid, makes me feel bad about myself. The company declared that EarMaster is a patient, non-judgmental teacher. More like having Simon Cowell judging my "awfully dreadful" singing voice.The pros of this program are the Melodic Dictation and Interval Singing Feature. I am progressing with these features. My only problem with Interval Singing is that it records unnecessary pitches that I didn't sing. I was able to solve that using the eraser in the toolbox. Or else this program would be a load of Bull-crap.For the sight-singing, I solved that problem by joining Mark O'Leary's sight singing school online. I am progressing much faster in sight singing than Ear Master.Overall, I stopped using EarMaster years ago, because it focuses on interval training. The exercises are artificial and not found in real music. Interval Training is a heresy taught in many music schools. I discovered that Keycenter Tonality Internalisation by singing the pitches and listening is the correct method to train your ear.EarMaster and Auralia are, both expensive and a waste of money. Not recommended.

it is just what my daughter asked forawith itnd she seemed very pleased with it. I am sure she will get a lot out of it.

don't buy !!!!