Music Theory

The Best Music Theory Apps For Students And Teachers

Written by Dan Farrant

Last updated

If you’re learning music theory, then you understand how many different topics and questions there are to cover. Learning on the go with music theory apps to revise and practice all the topics is a great way to keep it all your knowledge fresh.

For this post, I asked some of my students and teacher friends for their recommendations of what they think are the best music theory apps and have compiled a list of the ones I really liked.

My Favourite Music Theory Apps for iPhone

So being an iPhone user the apps below are all available on the Apple App Store.

I don’t have an android phone so haven’t been able to check out any of the ones available there.

1. Tenuto – musictheory.net

Tenuto

Tenuto is an iPhone app that will help you to become more musical.

It’s made up of 24 exercises covering everything from chord recognition and interval ear training as well as scale construction and accidental calculators.

You can use it offline and on the iPad to learn and do their challenge mode where you can test yourself on different topics.

It’s a firm favorite of teachers and students and for only £3.99 it’s awesome value for money to help you become more musical and improve your music theory knowledge.

2. Theory Lessons – musictheory.net

Theory Lessons is one of my favourite and most recommended music theory apps for the iPhone to my students.

It contains 39 animated lessons starting with the basics and taking you through so some more complicated music theory.

It has great images that really do a good job of explaining everything from note names and values to scales and time signatures.

I can’t believe it’s only £2.99. They should be charging far higher for this quality and useful app.

3. Music Theory Pro – Joel Clifft

Music Theory Pro has been downloaded over 130,000 times so they must be doing something right.

It’s an app to help you perfect your theory and ear training with games and lessons as well as a challenge mode where you can go head to head with your friends on your music theory knowledge.

It’s got a great feel and design, that will appeal to everyone. It’s now available on Android so it’s not just for the iPhone crowd.

At only £3.99 it’s another seriously underpriced great music theory app.

4. Music Theory Basics – Patrick Q. Kelly

Whilst Music Theory Basics is a little pricier than the other apps (£7.99) it’s a great iOS app for practising and learning the basics of music theory.

It has five modules on the following topics: notes, keys, intervals, chords and rhythms.

There is also an advanced app if you’re looking for something a bit harder too.

5. Theory Works – ABRSM

Lastly, we have Theory Works which is an official ABRSM app. It’s packed full of music theory questions (over 6000) designed to test you on all the different aspects of music theory.

I found it worked better on a tablet as some of the exercises could sometimes be a little bit small to see on mobile.

While, on the whole, it worked great, it was still quite ‘buggy’ with parts not working as they were intended too. I’m sure they’ll fix them though and at £4.99 it’s still good value for money.

That’s it for now

That about sums up some of my favorite music theory apps.

I’ll continue to keep this list updated as and when I come across new apps, I love or think might be useful.


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Dan Farrant, the founder of Hello Music Theory, has been teaching music for over 15 years, helping hundreds of thousands of students unlock the joy of music. He graduated from The Royal Academy of Music in 2012 and then launched Hello Music Theory in 2014. He plays the guitar, piano, bass guitar and double bass and loves teaching music theory.