Making the Most of Music Technology: Part Three of Three

Intonation Trainer is a new program from Coda Music Technologies. It comes with a microphone, foot pedal and a short but useful teacher's guide. Its basic purpose is to help train students to play "in tune."

Activities

Intonation Trainer is much more than just a tuner, however. In addition to the main tuner, activities include intervals, chords, tonic intervals, an intonation chart maker and an intonation test.

Main tuner

The main tuner functions just like any other chromatic tuner, with a few important differences. Before tuning, you can select your instrument and choose between a "classic" tuner with the needle and a "chromatic tuner" with a numeric slider display.

The addition of the foot pedal allows you to hear a reference tone while you play. Pressing the pedal will play the reference tone, using a timbre similar to your selected instrument. (If you decide not to connect the included pedal, you can use the space bar on your keyboard.)

This reference tone provides the basis for students to learn the art of intonation – by listening to and eliminating the beats they create with the reference tone they can learn to listen and play in tune.

Another important difference with Intonation Trainer's tuner is the addition of a "pitch target." When tuning intervals or chords, this target will move to show students where they need to play in order to be in tune using Just Intonation. This idea of using Just Intonation is one of the key selling points of Intonation Trainer. It helps students understand that not only do they need to listen to play in tune, but they also need to adjust depending on the note they are playing. Too often we see wind players who are used to playing equal-tempered tuning like a keyboard instrument, when they could be using just intonation to "lock" chords and intervals into tune by eliminating beats.

Intervals

The main tuner is used in a number of other activities besides tuning unison pitches. The Interval option on the Intonation menu allows students to choose to have the program play the selected interval in tune while they play a pitch. For example, a student can play an Eb and ask Intonation Trainer to play a Major 3rd above. It will play the Major 3rd exactly in tune (using just intonation), allowing the student to adjust their pitch as necessary if they hear beats.

Examples

The "Example" button allows students to hear Intonation Trainer play both pitches in the interval. Students can then move the notes played by the computer to be slightly higher or lower in order to hear and see the beats.

Hide the tuner

Each activity has a "Hide the Tuner" option, where students are required to tune by using their ears instead of their eyes. The foot pedal will turn the visual tuner back on when it is pressed, allowing students to check themselves to see if they really were in tune.

Chords

The Chords activity is similar to the Intervals section, except that students can choose to play the root, third or fifth of any chord. Intonation trainer will play the other two notes, exactly in tune, while the student plays his or her note. Turning off the visual tuner can make this an excellent tool for helping students hear beats and eliminate them to play in tune. They can check themselves by turning the tuner back on with the foot pedal. As with the other activities, chords includes an "Example" button where students can experiment with bringing pitches in and out of tune to hear the beats.

Tonic intervals

In this variation of the Interval exercises, Intonation Trainer will play, or hold, the tonic note while you play the specified interval. The "pitch target" will move according to the interval chosen, as you listen and adjust to the eliminate beats.

Listen closely

This exercise demonstrates the slight differences between various tuning calibrations. For example, students can hear the difference between using A=440 or A=438.

Chart Maker

The Chart Maker portion of Intonation Trainer is one of highlights of this program. Since no instrument plays completely in tune, and since no two instruments play the same, it is important for students to understand what they need to adjust to play in tune on their instrument. The Chart Maker can help.

Students start by selecting a note they want to add to the chart. Then, the program will listen to the student play that note in context. When holding a sustained pitch we will often unconsciously adjust it to bring it in tune. By analyzing what you play within a context of other notes, Intonation Trainer will give a more accurate representation of your instrument's tendencies.

Intonation Test

The "Intonation Test" will allow you to test your student's newfound ability to adjust to play in tune. Simply choose the notes you want to test, and then play scales, exercises or other music. Intonation Trainer will then print a summary chart for each note to show how close in tune you were.

Summary

It is hard to find fault with such a well-designed program. It does what it purports to do quite well. However, suggestions for future revisions would include more on-line help and instruction regarding tuning and intonation. There are rudimentary explanations and instructions for each activity, but they are purely text with no graphics and are really quite boring to read. In fact, I must admit that I skipped the explanations the first few times! The work around for this problem, of course, is to spend some time with your students demonstrating how the program works and what "intonation" really means.

The lesson plan included is very helpful, and the instructions for both students and teachers are clear. Intonation Trainer really can help train students to play with better intonation – and not just in unison but with intervals and chords as well. You'll be asking yourself the same question I did – "why didn't someone write this program before?!"

For more information on Intonation Trainer, including a demo, visit our web site at Intonation.

EarMaster comes in two versions – the personal edition and the school edition. Ear Master School is identical to the personal edition except that it adds the ability to track student progress and create your own "tutors." A tutor is a series of individual lessons in which you can specify the score the student must achieve in order to progress to the next lesson. Both editions come with a built-in that automatically adjusts the difficulty as you go through the lessons.

EarMaster will track user's progress, and generate reports. Students can use the personal edition to save their scores at home, and then bring the disk in to load the results onto the teacher's computer (provided the teacher has the school edition.) EarMaster also has the unique honour of being the only ear-training program that works in Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish!

Exercises in EarMaster include:

• Interval Identification,
• Interval Comparison,
• Chord Identification,
• Chord-inversion Identification,
• Chord Progression Identification,
• Scale Identification,
• Melody Dictate,
• Rhythm Imitation,
• Rhythm Reading,
• Rhythm Correction

Like Practica Musica, EarMaster allows you to enter your answers on a piano, guitar or staff on the screen, or with an external MIDI keyboard. EarMaster also includes sound-to-MIDI technology allowing you to give your answers with the microphone.

Interval exercises

There are two interval exercises in EarMaster. In interval comparison, EarMaster plays two intervals, and you identify the larger one. In interval identification, EarMaster plays a harmonic or melodic interval, and you identify it by its name or transcribe the tones on the piano, guitar or the a staff. If you decide to create your own "tutors" you can force students to identify the intervals by name, or have them transcribe it, depending on what you want them to practice.

Scale and mode exercise

EarMaster includes most scales (such as major, minor, blues, bebop, etc) and church modes. In scale identification, EarMaster will play a scale or mode, and ask you to identify it by its name or by transcribing the tones on the piano, guitar or the staff. Again, as with the interval exercises, you can specify the manner in which students respond if you create a custom tutor.

Chord exercises

In chord identification and the related chord-inversion identification, EarMaster plays a harmonic or melodic chord, and asks you to identify it or transcribe it as in the other identification exercises. Chord progression identification is very similar except that it plays a series of chords for you to identify the function and quality. You are not required to note the inversion or soprano and bass.

If you want to practice chords not included in EarMaster, you can add in your own chords. In fact, EarMaster allows you to add almost any element to the predefined list.

Rhythm exercises

In the rhythm reading exercise, EarMaster shows you a rhythm and you clap the rhythm in front of a microphone, tap the rhythm on the space bar or play it on your MIDI instrument. The program will show an arrow under each note to show if you were on time, ahead or behind. EarMaster is not as precise as Rhythm Ace in its results, as a less than stellar performance resulted in a "Perfect!" in the early levels. However, EarMaster does include "Kind", "Normal" and "Severe" evaluation settings. I would prefer to know if I was slightly out of time, even if the program is being kind and passing me!

In case there are arguments as to the program's evaluation of your student's performance, EarMaster will play back what it heard at your request. It is worth noting that EarMaster only listens to the attack of each note – it will not know the difference if you do not hold a half note full value.

Rhythm imitation is similar to rhythm reading except that EarMaster plays the rhythm instead of displaying it on the screen. By default, the program plays rhythms using a snare drum sound, rather than using a melody.

There is no rhythmic dictation exercise in EarMaster. There is, however, a rhythm correction component. In this activity, EarMaster shows a rhythm and plays the same rhythm with a few changes. Students are challenged to identify which changes were made.

In the melody exercise, EarMaster will play a melody of quarter, half and whole notes for you to notate. Fortunately, the default levels generally based the melodies on typical harmonies, and you can create your own melodies based on tonal patterns, or for more advanced students, atonal patterns.

Levels

Each exercise in EarMaster comes with a number of different pre-programmed levels as part of the included "Tutor." Some exercises have as many as 40 levels, others have as few as 13. By creating your own tutor, you can have as many levels as you wish within each exercise.

Summary

The layout of EarMaster makes it easy to learn to use. The levels can be adjusted without too much trouble, and most of the program is intuitive.

The Chord Progression exercise does not require inversions or the inclusion of a soprano and bass line. This is unfortunate, as simply knowing the function and quality is often not enough.

EarMaster is a good value as it includes a range of exercises and the ability to customize each exercise. As with most "all in one" packages it does leave some types of activities out and does not provide as broad of a scope as a specialized program such as MusicLab Harmony. Overall, however, EarMaster is a good choice.

For more information on Intonation Trainer, including a demo, visit our web site at Earmaster.