Look, Listen & Feel
APPS REViEW
TAKING A LOOK AT USEFUL APPS FOR THE SINGER.
LET US KNOW IF YOU THINK THERE ARE APPS WE
SHOULD BE REVIEWING
Enter the InTune app. What
originally began as Wittenberg
University music professor
Dan Kazez’s gamified method
of testing pitch discrimination,
I n Tu n e i s n o w a n a p p
designed both to test and
improve pitch discrimination
ability and a top 10 music app
in 15 countries. !
that is easy to use and
accomplishes its goal very
quickly; my score has
improved every time I’ve
played. And it’s not just me; a
research study showed
InTune to improve students’
listening the more often they
played--at triple the rate of
those who did not. !
The app works like this: two
tones are played and the
listener has to determine
whether the second tone was
higher or lower than the first
using an up or down arrow.
Every time the listener
answers correctly, the next
two tones are closer together
in pitch, making the task more
difficult. If a listener answers
incorrectly, the following two
tones are further apart in
pitch. !
If I have one criticism, it’s that
the app doesn’t let the listener
know if their scores are good
or bad compared to the
average for someone their
age. Maybe this is just my
competitive juices flowing, but
I’d have a better sense of
whether I need to use InTune
a lot (or if my parents were
right about loud headphones
ruining my hearing as a
teenager) if I saw that the
average for people my age is
higher than I’m consistently
scoring. !
!
InTune
Wittenburg University
99cents
iTunes link
Editor’s verdict: ★★★★★
Musicians of all kinds rely on
their ears to make sure
they’re in tune with the other
sounds around them. Horn
players, string players and
especially singers simply can’t
reach their fullest potential if
their ears haven’t been
properly trained. However, ear
training is usually conducted
over years of lessons and
performances little by little,
very much making the
process a gradual one
dependent on the frequency
of practice and lessons. This
fact also makes it difficult for
late-blooming musicians to
catch up. Shouldn’t there be
an easier, faster way for
artists to get their ears in
shape whenever it’s most
convenient for them?
iSing | issue 1
!
Once a listener has entered
three incorrect answers, the
game ends and the app
provides the listener with two
s cores: one that is point
based (you get between 10
and 30 points for a correct
answer depending on
difficulty) and another that is
percentage based and states
the interval between the two
closest pitches you answered
correctly, i.e. 2.5% of a half
step. !
!
A l l i n a l l , I n Tu n e i s a
simplistic, aesthetically
pleasing, and addictive app
!
!
In this vein, it might also be
interesting to have a user
leaderboard of sorts that
shows the top 10 highest
scores ever recorded, or even
to see basic info about other
users like what instrument
they play. Then we could
finally settle the argument
about what group of
musicians has a better ear
after all! !
!
InTune is available in the
iTunes App Store for only 99
cents! Download it here. ■
isingmag.com