Top 6 'Ear-Bending' Microtonal Ear Trainers to practice Hearing Beyond the 12-Tone Scale in 2025
Been playing or composing music for a while? Chances are, you've spent countless hours in the familiar, comforting world of the 12-tone equal temperament scale. It’s the sonic architecture of almost everything we hear, from pop anthems to classical masterpieces. It's consistent, reliable, and deeply ingrained in our musical culture. But what if I told you that this familiar scale is just one neighborhood in a vast, sprawling city of sound?
Beyond the twelve notes of the standard piano keyboard lies the vibrant, colorful world of microtonality. This isn't some academic, "out-of-tune" concept; it's the expressive language of cultures around the world and the cutting edge for innovative composers and producers. It’s the sound of the quarter-tones in Arabic music, the shimmering pure chords of Just Intonation, and the alien landscapes of xenharmonic music. As my colleague Goh Ling Yong often says, "The space between the notes is where new universes of music are born."
Training your ears to perceive these smaller-than-a-semitone intervals—these "microtones"—is like a painter suddenly discovering a thousand new colors. It opens up new melodic possibilities, richer harmonic textures, and a deeper understanding of sound itself. But where do you even begin? Fear not, sonic adventurer! The digital age has brought us powerful tools to guide our journey. Here are the top 6 'ear-bending' microtonal ear trainers you need to check out in 2025 to start hearing beyond the 12-tone scale.
1. Leimma & Apotome: The Elegant Starting Point
Leimma & Apotome are a pair of beautifully designed ear training tools (web-based, with an iOS app) that serve as a perfect gateway into the world of microtonality. Created by developer Marcus Satellite, they offer a clean, minimalist interface that strips away the complexity, allowing you to focus purely on the sound. Leimma focuses on melodic dictation, while Apotome hones in on interval identification.
Their strength lies in simplicity and focus. Instead of overwhelming you with every possible tuning system, they concentrate on various Equal Divisions of the Octave (EDOs). You can select a system like 17-TET, 19-TET, or 24-TET (quarter-tones) and immediately begin drilling. The app plays an interval or a short melody, and you identify it on a simple, circular interface. It feels less like a stuffy theory lesson and more like a musical puzzle game.
Pro-Tip: Don't jump straight into 72-TET and expect to succeed. Start with a system that has a distinct character, like 19-TET. Its "major thirds" are closer to pure than in our standard 12-TET, and its "minor thirds" are wider, giving it a unique, bright quality. Spend 10-15 minutes a day with one EDO. This consistency is far more effective than a single, frustrating multi-hour session. Use the app's visual feedback to connect the new sounds to a concrete pattern.
2. Xentone: The Power User's Paradise
If Leimma & Apotome are the elegant entry point, Xentone is the deep, powerful engine for the serious explorer. This web and Android-based tool is much more than just an ear trainer; it's a comprehensive microtonal synthesizer and analysis suite. For those who want to go beyond pre-set EDOs and dive into the nitty-gritty of Just Intonation, historical temperaments, or custom-designed scales, Xentone is indispensable.
The ear training module is incredibly robust. You can drill intervals, chords, and melodic patterns in virtually any tuning system you can imagine. Its killer feature is the ability to load Scala (.scl) and KBM (.kbm) files, the standard formats for defining and mapping tuning systems. This means you can download the exact tuning used by artists like Aphex Twin or Jacob Collier and train your ear to recognize its specific harmonic language.
Pro-Tip: Start by using Xentone to hear the difference between equal temperament and Just Intonation. Load a standard 12-TET file, and practice identifying a Perfect Fifth. Then, load a Just Intonation file and listen to the 3/2 Perfect Fifth. You'll hear a subtle but profound difference—the Just fifth has a smooth, placid quality, free of the "beating" of its tempered counterpart. This exercise alone will fundamentally change how you hear harmony.
3. The Lumatone Microtonal Ear Trainer: A Visual Approach
The Lumatone is a revolutionary isomorphic keyboard, but you don't need the hardware to benefit from their fantastic, free web-based ear trainer. This tool is unique because it's built around the Lumatone's hexagonal key layout. This visual approach can be a game-changer for understanding microtonal relationships, as intervals often have consistent shapes on the grid, regardless of the starting note.
The trainer allows you to work with a wide variety of EDOs and other temperaments. Instead of a traditional piano keyboard, you see a colorful hex grid. This divorces your ear from the ingrained "black and white key" patterns of 12-TET, forcing you to rely on pure listening. It’s a brilliant way to unlearn old habits and build new neural pathways for hearing pitch. The interface is intuitive, and the immediate visual feedback helps solidify the connection between what you hear and how it’s structured.
Pro-Tip: Lean into the visual aspect. As you hear an interval, try to visualize its "shape" on the hexagonal grid. A small step? A wide leap? This synesthetic approach—linking sound and shape—can accelerate your learning. Use it to explore a non-octave tuning, like one based on a perfect twelfth (the Bohlen-Pierce scale), to truly stretch your perception of musical structure.
4. The Functional Method (Using a Custom Setup)
This isn't a single app, but rather a powerful method that you can implement with free tools. Most interval trainers teach you to identify the distance between two notes in isolation (e.g., "that's a neutral third"). A functional approach, popularized by tools like the Functional Ear Trainer, teaches you to hear each note's unique sound and feeling in relation to a tonal center or root note. This is arguably a more musical and intuitive skill.
You can create your own microtonal functional ear trainer using any DAW (Ableton, Logic, Reaper) and a free synthesizer that supports microtonality, like Surge XT. First, load a microtonal scale (e.g., 22-TET). Create a track with a continuous drone on the root note of the scale. On a second track, create clips of the other individual notes from that scale. Then, randomize the clips and practice identifying each note's "function" or "color" against the drone.
Pro-Tip: This method, often championed by forward-thinking musicians like Goh Ling Yong, builds a deep and lasting understanding of a new tonal system. When you start, don't try to name the scale degree. Instead, give it a subjective name. Does the quarter-tone flat third sound "melancholy," "spicy," or "blue"? Does the ultra-major seventh sound "yearning" or "unstable"? By creating these personal emotional associations, you're not just memorizing intervals; you're learning the language.
5. Tonalis: The Music Theory Deep Dive
For the musician who wants to understand the why behind the what, Tonalis is an unparalleled tool. Available for iOS, macOS, and Windows, it’s less of a quiz-style trainer and more of an interactive, exploratory music theory laboratory. It excels at visualizing and sonifying the world of Just Intonation and the complex web of relationships between harmonic ratios.
Tonalis represents pitches on a "Tonnetz," or harmonic lattice, which visually displays simple integer ratio relationships. Its ear training exercises are integrated into this exploratory framework. You might be asked to distinguish between a pure 5/4 major third and a sharper 81/64 Pythagorean third. This might sound intimidating, but hearing these subtle differences is the key to unlocking the expressive power of different tuning systems. It trains you to listen for acoustic purity and harmonic "flavor" in a way no other tool can.
Pro-Tip: Use Tonalis to explore the "Comma Pump." Set up a progression of pure Just Intonation chords. You'll notice that if you cycle through a few chords (e.g., C-G-D-A-E), the "E" you arrive at is noticeably sharper than the "E" you would get by just playing a pure major third above C. Hearing this phenomenon, known as a syntonic comma, is a mind-bending experience that reveals why Just Intonation is both beautiful and challenging.
6. The DIY Method: Your DAW and a Reference Pitch
Finally, never underestimate the power of the most customizable tool you have: your own Digital Audio Workstation. This is the most hands-on approach and requires a bit of setup, but it’s free and can be perfectly tailored to your specific goals, whether you're a composer working on a specific piece or a vocalist trying to internalize a new scale.
The process is simple. Choose a synth that can load Scala files. Create a project and set it to your desired microtonal scale. On one track, record yourself playing an interval and saying its name aloud (e.g., play C and the note 50 cents above it, and say "Minor Neutral Second"). Do this for all the key intervals in your scale. On a second track, record just the audio of the intervals without your voice. Now, you have a custom flashcard deck. Mute the voice track, play the interval-only track on shuffle, and quiz yourself.
Pro-Tip: The act of creating the training material is a powerful part of the learning process itself. It forces you to engage with the sounds on a deeper level. For an advanced challenge, create melodic dictation exercises. Record simple 3-5 note melodies in your target scale, then try to transcribe them by ear. This directly translates your aural skills into practical, musical application.
Your Sonic Journey Awaits
Stepping outside the comfortable confines of the 12-tone scale can feel daunting, but it's one of the most rewarding journeys a musician can take. It connects you to a wider world of music, deepens your fundamental understanding of harmony, and provides you with a vast, untapped palette of expressive colors. The tools we have available in 2025 make this exploration more accessible than ever before.
Whether you start with the elegant simplicity of Leimma, dive deep with the power of Xentone, or build your own custom drills in your DAW, the key is to be patient, curious, and consistent. Start small, listen deeply, and celebrate the discovery of each new, beautiful sound that exists between the keys of the piano.
So, which of these trainers are you excited to try first? Do you have another favorite microtonal tool that I missed? Drop a comment below and let's explore the world beyond 12-TET together!
About the Author
Goh Ling Yong is a content creator and digital strategist sharing insights across various topics. Connect and follow for more content:
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