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Reel Ear Personal Ear Trainer – Review by Eric Parsons
Reel Ear Personal Ear Trainer… What is music? There is obviously no one right answer to such a question. Some might spew out a rigid Webster’s definition while others may simply say “It’s my life” or “It’s what gets me through my day”. Music is amazing – it can be universally powerful; captivating and unify ing entire populations of people and yet it can also be painfully personal – who doesn’t have that one special song that evokes the ghosts of a lost love or some other treasured memory.
There are probalby as many opinions as to what music is as there are people. One point that we would all agree on is that music is something that we hear. The key point of this little discussion is that our ears are fundamental to our understanding and enjoyment of music – this fact can tend to get lost in the day-to-day life of the aspiring musician who is striving to learn music theory, harmony, phrasing, technique… the list is almost never ending. A trained musical ear provides a tremendous advantage, allowing a musician to easily tune their instrument, readily interact (jam) with other musicians, pick out melodies, chords and song structures by ear and become a fundamentally sound musician.
Overview
Reel Ear is a software progarm for musical ear training which was originally created for the Reel Space Music school in Valencia, Spain and is now being made available to the public.
Reel Ear was developed in an academic setting, and this lineage likely explains the spartan, yet practical, layout of the graphical interface. All of the parameters and settings can be accessed from the main page which makes Reel Ear a fairly easy program to navigate and learn. I used the qualifier “fairly” because there are some design features that were not readily apparent to me, thereby forcing me to read the provided manual before being comfortable with the operation of the program.
What sets Reel Ear apart from other ear training programs, of which there are many, is that Reel Ear uses a random melody and chord progression generator to train your ear. The thought behind this approach is that other programs often use prerecorded exercises which can be memorized by the user and thereby minimize the actual effectiveness of those training exercises. Reel Ear also has a large selection of user defined variables: pitch, key, scale, note duration, loop length, octave range, and chord structure to name a few.
Installation and Setup
Reel Ear was easily downloaded and installed on my system. It is designed to run on Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7 only. Reel Ear then requires the product to be licensed through the website for permanent installation. A manual is included as a separate document, and again, I strongly recommend that you take the time to read the manual first – it will clear up a lot of little questions. One example: there is no universally recognizable start or stop button in the software (like there is on a CD player) there is a button labelled “Paused” – this is actually the start button.
The main window in Reel Ear is divided into eight panels that contain the controls of all its functions.
Panel 1 : Basic settings
Panel 2: Pitches
Panel 3: Durations
Panel 4: Loops
Panel 5: Volume
Panel 6: Bends
Panel 7: Timer
Panel 8: Ostinato
In Use
For my initial trial, I selected an acoustic bass sound and hit play (I mean the paused button ) and… heard a pattern that sounded more like chimes than a bass. I glanced around and realized that the ” melody octave reset” default was set to ” 3″, I reset this to “1” which then gave me a nice sounding accoustic bass. After this, I was off and running. The program lets the user set tons of variables, such as key, scale, the start and stop note, duration of notes and rests, and loop length and number of repetitions.
In addition to interval and melody ear training, Reel Ear also has a section devoted to recognition and identification of various of chords. The user is again able to configure a number of variables: instrument sound, chord type, starting chord, ending chord, octave offset, etc.
In use, I find that Reel Ear is a very useful and effective tool for improving one’s musical ear. The variety of user definable variables really helps to keep the process both interesting and relevant to a users particular needs. The timer is a nice added touch, in that I would get so engrossed in the exercises that I didn’t realize how much time had passed!
Cost: $12.95
Website: reelear.com
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Photo: Self-portrait by Melissa Auf Der Maur
Melissa Auf Der Maur is a Canadian bassist who played with Tinker, Hole, and The Smashing Pumpkins. She released her own work and is a photographer with photos published in Nylon, Bust, and National Geographic. She released her ‘90s Rock Memoir “Even The Good Girls Will Cry” on 17 March 2026.
KB: Did you always want to be a singer-musician growing up?
I’ve played music my whole life. In school, I played trumpet and sang in a children’s choir, so music was always within me. My mother was the first female disc jockey on the Montreal airwaves; her record collection played a huge role in my inspiration and love of music.
KB: When did you start playing bass, and why this instrument?
When I was 19, the early 90s music explosion began to percolate in tiny clubs around the world. I was lucky to be a ticket girl at Montreal’s underground music club. In one year, I saw Hole, Sonic Youth, Smashing Pumpkins, White Zombie, and The Breeders – all had female bass players. That’s when the seed was planted. By the age of 22, I was the bass player of Hole.
KB: Which brands of basses have you used in your career, and which one are you using now?
The first bass that I learned on was a vintage Squier Precision. Hole was sponsored by Fender guitars, so I upgraded to Fender Custom Shop Precisions. That is all I play, but I have a cool vintage 8-string Greco that I use on recordings to thicken up guitar parts.
KB: What equipment do you use or have you used with your basses?
Ampeg SVT amps and cabinets, a couple of Sans-Amp pedals, and that is it.
KB: How did you become a member of Hole, and what is your fondest memory of that time?
Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins was helping scout a replacement for (RIP) Kristen Pfaff, Hole’s bass player. My band, Tinker, opened for them on the Siamese Dream tour, so Billy had seen me play and could vouch for me. Courtney trusted her talented friend, and that was it. I initially said “no thank you” due to my commitment to my photographic studies and the drama and chaos surrounding the band during the “Live Through This” album release. Courtney took it as a good sign that I said no, so convinced me to reconsider, and soon after, I accepted their invitation, in the name of helping put females in the male-dominated landscape of rock music. My fondest memory is every show we played as a mostly female band, symbolizing what a woman could do in a rock band. Every show had a purpose: get more women to play music.
KB: You are a photographer as well. What makes a great picture? Do you shoot in color or b/w?
I started shooting photographs at age 15. Initially only shot black & white and worked in the art school darkroom. In university, I took a color photography course, and shifted mostly and forever to that, because it was easier to process film on the road when I joined a rock band. I experimented with many cameras, point and shoots, manual, polaroids, medium format, and vintage finds. The trick to a good photograph is to shoot many and all the time – the magic is in the edit and selection process.
KB: Are there artists you would love to collaborate with or wish you had?
??I’ve been lucky to collaborate with some of my favorite musicians in my career. I would still love to collaborate with a new generation heavy electronic artist on an analog bass, heavy electronic drums, and synths collaboration project. Take me out of my usual zone, merging the past and future: my love of 80s dark new wave and new artists exploring that genre. It was very futuristic back then, and we are now, after all, living in the future. I am in the mood to play bass to heavy beats I want to dance to.
KB: What are your 7 favorite bass lines in music across all genres? And why these 7?
“Mountain Song” – Jane’s Addiction (love a rambling, rolling bass line – feels like the ocean waves)
“Black Top – Helmet” (was the first bass line I taught myself)
“Gold Dust Woman” – Hole from “The Crow 2” Soundtrack (it was my first bass line contribution to the band)
“Get Ready” – The Temptations (Motown just feels so good, because of the bass)
“Lucretia My Reflection” – Sisters of Mercy (makes me want to hit the dance floor and play bass simultaneously)
“Be My Druidess” – Type O Negative (full chord bass playing at its best by iconic, demonic, Peter Steele, RIP)
“Romantic Rights” – Death from Above (1979 – unique distorted overdriven tone, combined dance rhythm and melodic intelligence, all in one shot – also! Shout out to a bass & drum only band, which is awesome, and we should have more of, but the bass player needs to be a killer to fill that role.
KB: What are you currently up to?
Releasing my ‘90s Rock Memoir “EVEN THE GOOD GIRLS WILL CRY”. Visceral healing process, it was to get it out of me and write it, but I suspect the real magic will begin by putting it into the world and reflecting with others on what the magic of the ‘90s was all about. Powerful music decade that carried us into what is now a brave new world of digital corporate weirdness – may the past shed a light on our future. That’s my hope for this book release and tour.
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