Playing music by ear is the most important skill that a musician can develop. Many musicians, however, get frustrated with ear training software because it sounds clunky and “unmusical”, has only a limited amount of melodies, and doesn’t do exactly what the musician wants.

Reel Ear, the new ear training program from the Reel Space Irish Music School in Valencia, Spain, solves those typical design problems.

Designer Mattie O’Boyle says that “our concept of ‘infinite melodies based on a discrete set of user defined variables’ means that Reel Ear will generate thousands of possible melodies using just the most basic settings a beginning musician would want; add a few more variables to the mix and the number of possible melodies skyrockets into the billions – and all of it sounds really musical”

Musicians can tweak which notes or musical rests they want to work on, the length and speed of the phrases, and the number of times the phrases repeats before moving on to a new melody. They can also customize the metronome to have the musical dictation take place against almost any possible rhythmic background and activate the ostinato module to add an harmonic element to their ear training workout.

Reel Ear is currently available for download from the Reel Ear website (www.reelear.com). Reel Ear has a 30 day, fully functional trial period and an individual license to unlock the program forever costs $39.95 (USD). Accredited music schools receive trade discounts based on the volume of their purchase. Currently, Reel Ear is only available for the Windows operating system.