reelear.com
Reelear.com is a web-based music ear-training platform that helps musicians practice melodies, chords, arpeggios, microtones, and tuning through listening and call-and-response exercises.
What does Reelear.com actually do?
The main idea behind Reelear.com is to develop your musical ear by hearing a phrase and then singing or playing it back instead of starting with written music theory.
The exercises are generated from variables chosen by the user, so the system can produce new musical dictations rather than making you repeat one fixed lesson.
A metronome continues during the response period, which also makes timing part of the listening exercise.
This approach is different from simply identifying an interval or choosing the correct note from a multiple-choice list.
Which ear-training tools are available?
Reelear.com currently presents five main tools covering Melody, Arpeggio, Harmony, Microtone, and Tuning ear training.
The Melody Ear Training app lets beginners start with very few notes before adding rhythms, rests, wider octave ranges, and faster tempos.
Arpeggio training focuses more on hearing notes within chord structures, while Harmony training is designed around recognizing and reproducing chords.
Microtone training goes beyond the standard notes found on a piano, while the Tuning app concentrates on small differences in pitch.
Do you have to install any software?
No software installation is required because Reelear's applications run inside a web browser.
According to the site's technical FAQ, the apps support Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Edge, and Safari.
An internet connection is required to open an app, although Reelear says an already loaded app can continue working offline until the browser is closed.
This browser-based design makes the service usable from computers, tablets, and phones without managing a separate desktop application.
How much does Reelear.com cost?
At the time of this review, Reelear.com lists its Solo Monthly plan at $12.95 per month and includes access to all of its ear-training apps.
The Solo Yearly option is advertised as $4.95 per month when billed annually, which works out to $59.40 for a full year.
A Guided Learning membership costs $48 per month and adds a personalized 20-minute Zoom session each week with an ear-training coach.
Reelear also advertises a 15-day free trial and says users can cancel before the trial ends without being billed.
Because subscription prices can change, checking the current membership section before paying is sensible.
Who created Reelear.com?
The site's About page identifies Mattie O'Boyle as its web-app designer and director, alongside educational psychologist María Vázquez and telecommunications engineer Raúl Melinte.
Reelear says its apps grew from exercises developed at Reel Space Folk Music School in Valencia, Spain.
According to the company, that school operated for 10 years and taught 350 adult music students before the tools were developed for a wider online audience.
Those figures are company-provided history rather than independently audited usage statistics.
Does science support this type of ear training?
Scientific research supports the broader idea that auditory practice can improve pitch discrimination, although this evidence should not be treated as a clinical test of Reelear.com itself.
A 2006 Hearing Research study tested 30 classical musicians and 30 non-musicians and found that the non-musicians initially had mean pitch-discrimination thresholds more than six times larger.
In a second part of that study, eight untrained participants reached thresholds similar to the musician group after roughly four to eight hours of specialized training.
A 2024 study indexed by PubMed also reported better frequency-discrimination and temporal-processing results among musically trained children and adults than among comparison groups without musical education.
That study involved 40 participants in total, so its authors specifically called for larger and longitudinal studies before drawing broader conclusions.
What makes Reelear.com different from traditional lessons?
Its main distinction is an emphasis on listening and immediate musical response instead of making notation or abstract theory the starting point.
Users can also control variables such as pitches, rhythm, tempo, octave range, repetitions, instruments, and visual feedback to change the difficulty of an exercise.
This flexibility may be especially useful for musicians who want focused listening practice alongside normal instrument lessons rather than another theory-heavy course.
Is Reelear.com worth considering?
Reelear.com offers an unusual set of interactive ear-training tools for musicians who prefer learning through sound, with its browser access, adjustable exercises, five training areas, and free trial making it easy to test whether its call-and-response method suits your practice style.