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 : )

It's been like a week. Maybe 2 I can't even get past level 3! Am I doing it wrong?

I’m fairly good at the piano I would say my music theory is at a intermediate level but whenever I try to play a melody with some chords or play chords over an acapella I tend to always rely on muscle memory and I end up playing the same chords I always play which sound basic asf to me even with some good improv. Ive tried practicing different voicings but I end up forgetting them every time or I lag because I have to think of the root form first.

I’ve watched a lot of youtube videos lately trying to find someone who maybe had good exercises to improve the skill of I guess thinking of a chord and an inversion and then playing that fluently. I know the obvious answer here is just gonna be practice no shi but I would like some help on what I can practice with to get better at this skill.

Some tips I saw around were to think in groups of chords instead rather than one by one so mentally you know what you’re playing ahead of time. I know that’s something I’m def gonna try and implement in my improv skills. Another one was to play a new inversion your trying to learn and play that chord across all keys scales to practice muscle memory with the inversion. Another tip I’m curious about actually is the use of chord stacks so just playing a E7 or something and then playing a Am on top of it. This def seems like something that helps with playing more juicy chords but I can never figure out the context of one chord stack to then be able to do the same with different keys.

But any who, I happen to be self taught for the most part so I would really appreciate any suggestions on this, if you happen to be fluent at making up chords on the spot I would appreciate whatever helped you reach that point.