Learning music theory can be a boring task. Gladly we live in the 21 century and there are a lot of great tools out there to make your theory lessons actually fun. In this post I’m going to introduce 4 of our favorite iPhone apps to learn and practice music theory.
Waay
Waay is an app that helps you to learn how to build up all major and minor scales and their chords.
It is divided into two different sections: “Melodies” and “Chords”. In the melodies section there are 8 videos that contain mind-hacks that will help you to memorize what you absolutely need to memorize; properly and effectively.
After each video there is one or two games (pretty challenging though) where you can test your new knowledge and put into practice.
In the chords section you will learn to build the minor scale all major- and minor chords from scratch. The games are a lot of fun and it´s definitely worth checking out. Especially because the complete melody section is free. If you want the full version it is about: and it´s definitely worth it.
Note Trainer
Well now you are able to build up the scales by the letters of the key (cdefgab) but your not able to read it from in classical music-notation. Well, no problem: “Note Trainer”is a great app to learn and practice musical notation.
Rhythm Sight Reading Trainer
“Rhythm Sight Reading Trainer”, is an app designed to help musicians to improve their sense of rhythm.
The app features a variety of exercises that gradually increase in difficulty, allowing users to start with basic rhythms and progress to more complex ones. With adjustable tempo and the ability to customize exercises, Rhythm Sight Reading Trainer is suitable for musicians of all levels. Your practicing to tap a rhythm along the beat and the app provides instant feedback on accuracy and timing, helping users identify areas that need improvement.
Sing true
Perfect! Now that you are able to to build the scales and also put it onto paper there is only one thing left: Hear the right notes. Yes this is a though one. But there is help out there.
This is a very interesting one. Sing True lets you to recognize the pitch of the voice (which is the most interesting part for music theory), sing in tune and discover your personal key. Everything is step-by-step and the app also looks pretty nice.
Sing True has two different modules “Pitch” and “Relative Pitch” both are divided into three sections:
Ears
In this section you learn to recognize the pitch of instruments and voice recordings. There are a few different game types, e.g. recognize if the pitch is higher or lower than the pitch before.
Voice
In this section you learn to match a certain pitch with your voice.
Mind
In this section you will learn which note is ‘your’ singing note. Very helpful!
If you have any other recommendation, feel free to leave a comment!
