ETDrill Version 3.1 for Windows

Developed by Profs. Gary Wittlich and Eric Isaacson, ETDrill is a highly-customizable program for drilling the aural recognition of musical elements.

Pricing/Order Form
Downloadable Demo (version 3.0)

General Features

• Drills on intervals, pitch patterns, melodies, isolated sonorities, and harmonic progressions
• User-guided pacing
• Support for Windows-compatible sound card
• Optionally uses MIDI keyboard
• Student can compare original and their version
• Student progress tracked in all drills

System Requirements

• Windows 95 or later
• Windows sound card and/or attached MIDI keyboard
• 800 x 600 resolution

Interval Drill

The interval drill allows students to identify intervals of any size up to an octave.

• Students can select which intervals they wish to work with.
• Students can choose to work with harmonic, ascending melody, descending melodic, or mixed melodic intervals.
• Students can respond by playing the interval on a MIDI keyboard, identifying the interval type, or both.
• To simulate a testing situation, students can limit the number of hearings.
• Students' scores are tracked within the session.

Pitch Pattern Drill

The Pitch Pattern Drill presents the student with arrhythmic pitch patterns of three to twelve pitches. The pitch pattern drill helps students develop their sense of pitch memory and tonal orientation.

• Eight difficulty levels allow students to select between shorter or longer patterns, diatonic or chromatic patterns, and stepwise patterns or patterns with leaps.
• Students can respond either by playing the pattern on a MIDI keyboard or by identifying the scale degrees of the pattern. Students can select whether to use scale degree numbers or movable Do solfege.
• To simulate a testing situation, students can limit the number of hearings.
• Students can set the tempo at which the patterns are played and choose which clefs to use.

Melodic Dictation Drill

The melodic dictation drill provides practice in notating melodies.

• Features a database of almost 2000 melodies drawn from the tonal literature.
• Students can control the length and range of the melodies, the percentage of leaps, and can require, allow, or exclude specific pitch and rhythm features.
• Students can respond either by playing the melody back on a MIDI keyboard (only pitches are judged, not rhythm; they can listen to both their version and the original) or by notating the melody on staff paper and comparing their answer with the correct answer.
• All melodies have pre-set tempos, but students can override these tempos either individually (on the main window) or globally (on the Settings dialog box).

Sonorities Drill

The Sonority Drill helps students develop the ability to distinguish between different chord types and inversions, heard in isolation.

• Students can elect to work with any combination of chord types.
• To simulate a testing situation, students can limit the number of hearings.
• An option to emphasize the bass note is provided.
• Students' scores are maintained throughout the session. The "Details" button allows students to see which chords they have the most trouble identifying, allowing them to focus their attention on those problem areas.

Harmonic Progression Drill

The Harmonic Progression Drill presents chord progressions in four voices. The student identifies the chords by selecting a Roman numeral, inversion, and (optionally) tonicized chord.

• Database of harmonic progressions includes 14 difficulty levels.
• Harmonic progressions are transposed and the first chord voiced randomly, increasing the effective size of the database.
• A sophisticated voice leading algorithm will voice-lead arbitrary progressions. This allows students to see and hear their version and compare it with the original, or to compare alternatives (IV vs. ii6, for example).
• Students can change tempo of individual progressions, or of all progressions.
• Students can choose to limit the number of hearings
• Students can set the balance among voices, for example, to bring out the bass and soprano
• The students' composite score is displayed.

Acknowledgements

Program Design: Dr. Eric Isaacson, Dr. Gary Wittlich
Programmers: Eric Isaacson, Jodi Graham, Brent Yorgason, Larry Meehan
Design Consultants: Ray Foster, Ruth Eberle
Institutional Partners: Teaching and Learning Technologies Lab (TLTL), David Goodrum, Director Center for Innovative Computer Applications (CICA), Rick McMullen, Director
Fonts: Bach-ETDrill v. 3.1 used under license from Yo Tomita. CSTimes v. 1 used under license from Maestro Software. To order ChordSymbol v. 1, contact:

John R. Clevenger
Maestro Software
50 South Patterson Ave., #203
Santa Barbara, CA 93111