TubeNet

Scooby Tuba wrote:Hey TubeNetters!

I'm going to spend a little more time in school and I'm thinking of brushing up the old aural skills with MacGamut. Can anyone give some first hand experience advice on this program. Pros, cons, alternatives?

Thanks for any input...

The Scoobster

This may be out of print. I could not find it on Google, ebay or Amazon. Lots of other hits for "ear training," however.

TubaBMC wrote:http://www.macgamut.com/

Thanks. I was googling on another poster's misspelling.

We use this program here at UCA for Ear Training I and II. I found it to be very helpfull especially since I had no experience with ear training before the class.

As for the poster who had problems with the bass and soprano notes...you can change the volume settings to where you can hear them easier.

It is a good program, made by musicians. Bill Dilts is a former band director who does a majority of the programming. Boring is a term quite often used for things that build skills. Yes, it is difficult, but overcoming these aural difficulties is imperative to the success of a music student. My only complaint is that it uses the III (iii) far too often in dictation. That is one of the least used chords in tonal music. Outside of that, it's like long tones for the ears. Use it all the time, and you will become strong, grasshopper!

I would suggest you consider a program called "Auralia." We used it and I really liked the intonation exercises it offered.

We also used MacGamut. I find that the synthesized piano sounds are still far off from an actual piano, especially in terms of timbre. I always did much better in actual ear tests than I did in MacGamut for that reason.

One of the great things about MacGamut is that it is very adaptable. If, for example, you find you have trouble hearing the difference between upward melodic intervals of major and minor sixths, you can adapt the program to quiz you on just that.

The program does what you want it to do.