September, 2015
Author: Peter Torpey
This program is distributed as shareware. If, after testing it out and you like the program enough to keep it, please consider making a contribution to my PayPal account by clicking on the PayPal button below:
“EAR TRAINING” is a simple, user-friendly program designed to help the user learn to recognize notes, intervals, and chords. Two modes are available:
1. The user can elect to play sounds from lists of notes, intervals, or chords.
2. The user can elect to have the program play randomly selected notes, intervals, or chords.
Various settings are provided for controlling the playback of sounds. These include the ability to:
These user selections are also saved from session to session.
Note: The program does not require any special music software or hardware to run and generate sounds. Sinply install on a Windows operating system and you’re ready to go!
The following controls appear on the main screen when the program is first run:
This checkbox determines whether or not notes contained in intervals and chords are played simultaneously (unchecked) or successively (checked).
If the “Arpeggiate Notes” checkbox is checked, this checkbox appears. If checked, notes contained in intervals or chords will be played from top to bottom. Otherwise notes are played from bottom to top.
This contains a grouping of radio buttons, only one of which can be selected at a time. The selections are:
- Play Notes – Plays the selected note from a list of choices
- Play Intervals – Plays the selected interval from a list of choices
- Play Chords – Plays the selected chord from a list of choices
- Guess Notes – Plays a randomly generated note from within a pre-specified range
- Guess Interval – Plays a randomly generated interval from within a pre-specified range
- Guess Chords – Plays a randomly generated chord from within a pre-specified range
When playing notes, intervals, or chords (i.e., when any of the first three radio buttons are selected), a list box is available for making user selections. The list of choices will contain either notes, intervals, or chords, depending on which radio button the user has selected. Note: if the user elects to guess notes, intervals, or chords, then these choices are not available (since the program will make it’s own random selections).
The user can click an item in the list and click the “Play” button to have that sound played.
If guessing notes, intervals, or chords, the user can click this button to generate and play a new note, interval or chord. If playing notes, intervals, or chords, this button is grayed out.
Clicking this button plays the user selected note, interval, or chord when playing notes or replays the randomly generated note, interval, or chord when guessing notes, intervals, or chords.
When guessing notes, the user can click this button to have the program tell the user what note, interval, or chord was randomly generated. This button is grayed and not available when the user elects to play notes, intervals, or chords.
Clicking this button brings up a dialog with a variety of user selectable program settings (see below).
Exits the program and saves settings.
Brings up this help file.
This screen is brought up when the user clicks the “Settings…” button on the main screen. This dialog contains a variety of parameters which can be set to control how the sounds are played. The controls in this dialog are:
Specifies the time between successive notes of intervals and chords when the “Arpeggiate Notes” checkbox on the main screen is checked. The delay between notes is specified in seconds.
Specifies the duration of notes in seconds.
Specifies the lowest pitch to be used when the program randomly generates notes, intervals, or chords.
Specifies the highest pitch used as the note or root of an interval or chord when the program randomly generates notes, intervals, or chords.
The root to be used when the user elects to play intervals or chords.
The patch number specifies the instrument to be used to play notes. This value can be in the range 0 to 127. These numbers map to instruments according to the Microsoft MIDI Mapper. A value of 0 is an acoustic piano. You can experiment with other sounds!
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Clicking this button closes the user selections dialog and saves all settings. The settings will be saved for the next time the program is run.
Clicking this button exits the user selections dialog without saving any of the modified settings.