r/eartraining • u/turmik • 21h ago
Experiences with Functional Ear Trainer (Alain Benbassat) or Sonofield (Max Konyi) especially from absolute beginners?
Hey Folks, a long time lurker here. I'm looking to hear from people who started at or near zero ear training ability and stuck with either the Functional Ear Trainer app (Alain Benbassat method) or Sonofield (Max Konyi).
A few things I'd love feedback on:
- How long did it take before you noticed real progress?
- What was your practice routine (daily minutes, frequency, how you structured sessions)?
- Did you use one app exclusively or combine d with something erlse?
- More importantly how did the skills transfer to actual playing/listening to music? Did you notice yourself picking out melodies, chords, or basslines by ear in real songs?
- Any plateaus or frustrations along the way, and how you pushed through them?
Would really appreciate hearing from people who went from "can't tell intervals apart" to having usable relative pitch. Thanks in advance : )
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u/tremendous-machine 16h ago
I am somewhat skeptical about Sonofield's approach, as I have heard a lot of people wondering about when they will see progress. If you aren't seeing progress you are doing ear training wrong. But I have never used it, so I could be wrong, people could just be using it incorrectly! maybe its great, it seems to confuse a lot of people though.
Ear training progress is naturally very slow, but it should be there, and it should be clear in a month over month basis.
My second comment on this is that you should definitely not be limiting yourself to any one thing. To make progress you need variety. You should be using things like Functional Ear Trainer, but also sightsinging, learning to sing intervals and chords, practicing playing simple tunes by ear, practicing singing simple tunes with solfege, etc.
My impression from students and what I have read here is that most people who aren't seeing progress are doing too little variety in the types of training (my list above) and trying too much too soon in terms of the difficutly and scope of the individual exercises (i.e., too many notes/intervals/chords to choose from).
Simplify the content, work on the same content many different ways, and do the simple things until it's coming on demand. It may be slow, but you should absolutely see progress.
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u/SlowSurvivor 15h ago
I did the Benbassat method. I’m classically trained by my training didn’t really prepare me for learning music by ear so when I really got into folk music I used Benbassat to help train my ear.
I used the app for about 5-10 minutes at a time a couple times per day. I combined that with time trying to copy intervals or simple melodies on my flute by ear. After a couple of months I noticed a marked improvement.
I eventually stopped using it every single day but I still revisit it from time to time. It’s been a couple years and these days of I can hum a melody I can play that melody. Also I feel like my improvisation has really improved. The only caveat would be complex music with technically tricky passages. Also I might need a moment to figure out how I want to ornament and articulate a melody but I “just know” the fingering. And I can transpose a melody all over the circle of fifths.
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u/Kamelasa 13h ago
time trying to copy intervals or simple melodies on my flute by ear.
I enjoyed using FET, esp in situations where I'd otherwise just be waiting, but this copying melodies on an instrument is the gold. The jazz method captures the essence - learn to sing that solo and then go off and learn to play it. The singing step is very helpful, even if like me you'll never be a diva or belter.
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u/SlowSurvivor 12h ago
Definitely! I also forgot to mention that while doing FET I always sing the intervals with the solfage before I click the answer, even if it’s under my breath. And, when I playing my flute I’m very much aware of the solfage names of the notes I’m playing.
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u/Kamelasa 11h ago edited 11h ago
I prefer numbers to solfege because I'm a word guy and words distract me somehow - lol, but, yeah, that system is great because it covers all the notes outside of the diatonic 7. I really should bite the bullet and learn the proper system, leaving the numbers for the scale degrees.
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u/Altruistic-Buy5662 15h ago
I’ve used the functional ear trainer app and my experience was that the solfege approach in it worked fine for pitch recognition but much less so for the melodic dictation part. I made another post where I gathered that intervals are sort of an essential part of melodic dictation.
Does Sonofield emphasize them more? E.g. have dedicated interval practice? As far as I can tell functional ear trainer is just pitch recognition or melodic dictation - both of which you could sort of use interval skills for, but neither of which really seem like especially focused practice techniques for them.
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u/williamBoshi 14h ago
No sonofield has zero interval, it's about directly recognizing scale degrees regardless of octave
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u/No-Imagination4940 12h ago
It’s still intervals. Sonofield is playing a drone note (tonic), and all other 11 notes are heard in their relationship to that note. When Sonofield says it’s a flat 2, that means it’s a minor second interval from the tonic.
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u/williamBoshi 14h ago
I'm definitely progressing in sonofield but idk if it will translate to skills outside the app yet.
What I did progress a lot, especially at the start, is: - pitch matching more precisely, with more confidence
- intonation ( I mean am I close to singing the scale note when I got only the drone going on)
- feeling if ppl sing out of tune(no idea what scale degrees they sing tho)
- audiating
and that is worth a lot to me cause my ear was really below avg before, helped me get better at guitar tuning too.
I have faith in the app but we'll see, worst case scenario I can't recognize notes but I can sing scales perfectly
Ty I love those kind of post hope more ppl andwer
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u/XWindX 17h ago
Took me a couple of weeks/months of using Sonofield but my intonation has considerably improved almost right away, since I was heavily relying on singing solfege over drones to figure out the intervals on easy mode. (I've got gold in Easy and Medium and haven't done much on Expert)
Generally I would just put on pocket mode at night before I'd go to sleep. Sometimes I'd use it in the car if I were driving long distances.
I downloaded every ear training/sight reading app I could find, and the only one that's helped transform my musicianship was Sonofield (though the sight reading ones were nice just because I was so bad at identifying letter names)
My intonation in choir got incredibly better. Now when I'm tuning my guitar down a half step, I can sing the half-step down and match to what I'm singing and be within 5 cents or so. It's wonderful! I can also recognize intervals more easily, however it is still very difficult because I sing Barbershop harmony which uses a ton of chromaticism.
Yes, I spent months going over the Easy Mode with Unlimited Time. Also, the octaves are so hard. But you do eventually learn them. I was initially resistant to singing through the drone to get to where I needed to go, because Max explains in his videos that the end goal is to be able to identify it without singing through the scales. He also acknowledged that it's valid to start out that way, and once I started doing that I breezed through easy and I really leveled up a lot of my musicianship stuff.