The versatility of modern smartphones and other mobile devices is amazing, and can be an entire suite of musicians’ resources at once. People talk mostly about their potential as e-instruments and recording suites, but there’s also a treasure trove of great self-improvement tools as well.

So, this month we’re highlighting Perfect Ear, available for free on Google Play, as a great tool for training a vitally-important but often-forgotten part of your musicianship: Your musical ear.

Mobile Musicians Resources: Perfect Ear For Android

Sure, you’ll slowly train your ear as you continue to play, but there’s no reason not to speed the process along. Despite its somewhat pedestrian title, Perfect Ear isn’t just another name-that-pitch program. It has a suite of different modes that broaden your musical and compositional range.

Using a game-like interface that mixes hands-on musical examples with questions to answer, it offers a huge range of individual lessons. To name a few, you can train your:

• Scale Identification
• Chord Sequences
• Absolute Pitch
• Chord Inversions
• Interval Comparisons

If your Android device has a mic, Perfect Ear also has a vocal training suite.

While regular use of Perfect Ear could be great training for anyone, it could be especially useful for people who find themselves playing accompaniment more often than lead. If you perform backup or do a lot of live improvisation work, this sort of pitch and interval training will be invaluable for expanding your skills.

There’s also a 99c Perfect Ear Pro available with more high-level lesson modules included as well as full technical support from the devs.

So, if you’re on Android, think about adding Perfect Ear to your list of on-hand musicians’ resources. Just a few minutes a day training with it while otherwise killing time could really pay off in terms of boosting your musicianship!