If you’re curious about Beato Ear Training, you’ve come to the right post!
Before we dive in, I want you to know that this post isn’t sponsored in any way.
The way this site makes money is through display advertising.
So whether I endorse this product or not doesn’t impact this site’s earnings.
Who Is Rick Beato?
Sure, YouTube guitar lessons aren’t anything new.
They’ve been out there almost as long as the streaming platform itself.
However, for many years, we mostly had beginner-oriented content.
Or just a bunch of guitar players showing off their shredding skills.
However, it all changed with Rick Beato.
Although it took some time for his channel to grow, he’s now your go-to YouTube music theory teacher.
What’s awesome is that he has a very practical approach to lessons.
But his work goes way back.
From the 1980s and onwards, he has worked as a professional musician, teacher, composer, producer, and engineer.
During the 1990s, he started his studio and a record label.
However, he finally got into the spotlight in 2015 with the rise of his YouTube channel.
As of April 2023, he has around 2.92 million subscribers.
Outside of music theory, his content focuses on production, mixing, and even interviews with famous musicians.
His YouTube fame eventually brought other things, including his Beato Ear Training.
Beato Ear Training Overview
The Beato Ear Training focuses on helping musicians develop their sense of pitch.
But it goes way beyond just recognizing intervals and chords.
The idea is to get a grasp of advanced concepts as well.
It even comes in handy for those with perfect pitch.
It can help one better understand more complex and advanced concepts.
Here we’re looking at a browser-based app.
There’s a collection of lessons, organized in groups.
Systematically, it all makes a lot of sense.
Each lesson comes with an instruction video.
All of these are about a minute or two long.
In them, you’ll see Rick explaining what the lesson is about.
Then you proceed to the practice mode and work on the skill.
After the practice, you do the test for this part.
It’s pretty straightforward.
You go from one section to another, each featuring several lessons.
The same rule applies to the entire program.
Content
The entire program includes 15 groups of lessons.
It all starts with pitch and moves to intervals, triads, seventh chords, etc.
Here’s the full list of these lesson sets:
- Pitch
- Intervals
- Triads
- Seventh chords
- Tonal progressions
- Secondary chords
- Extended chords
- Rhythm
- Modal voicings
- Scales
- Modal harmony
- Bitonal harmony
- Reharmonization
- Inner note hearing
- Twelve-tone harmony
What Are Its Advantages?
Beato’s greatest strength as a teacher is knowing how to systematize the content.
In my opinion, lessons flow well from one to another.
You’ll watch the video, do the exercise, do the test, and move on.
In my experience, you can’t really skip any lessons and expect good results.
And what you learn in one lesson, you’ll apply in the next one.
As you move higher through the program, you’ll be using the skills that you got in earlier lessons.
Additionally, his instructional videos are really great.
There’s obviously a lot of effort put into this.
But this is no surprise at all since his YouTube experience has given him a lot of presentational experience.
The overall concept of the course is solid.
It’s formulated in such a way to bring an absolute beginner to a high-level musician if the student really puts in the work.
Of course, this will also require a lot of practice and music theory knowledge.
But as an ear-training program, the overall concept is top-notch.
And What Are Its Disadvantages?
There are three main issues that I’d like to get into here.
These come down to pricing, user experience, and some errors.
The price is the obvious issue.
If you dig some info about it online, people will complain about how expensive it is.
Of course, getting extensive knowledge or a proficient skill is never cheap.
I’m not saying that it isn’t worth it.
But if many of your potential buyers complain, then maybe there’s a way to reconsider it.
I’d like to see different price tiers with different content if it were up to me.
After all, different people want different levels of content-depth.
Then we get to the user experience.
I think this whole app needs a thorough renovation.
It’s not impossible to use, but it would save you a lot of time and energy if things looked and worked better.
Finally, we get to the errors.
Now, I need to point out that I’m generally tolerant.
Additionally, I’m a Rick Beato fan, so I may tend to be more forgiving.
But to be fair, his content errors need revision.
Many have complained about errors, even in the entry-level lessons.
Minor and major thirds mixed up can cause a lot of confusion to beginners.
The app is in dire need of thorough revisions.
Is it really worth the price?
I can’t say that this is a bad program.
In theory, it’s pretty well-conceived, and the systematization is solid.
Then, once again, we get back to the errors.
Combine that with the price, and to me, you’ve got yourself a deal-breaker.
But if we think of it as an overall app idea, it’s technically worth the price.
A very detail-oriented beginner-to-pro collection of lessons. If it had no errors, that is.
But even if we were to ignore these errors, there’s an additional problem here.
Such a program may work for some while it’s completely useless to others.
Personally, I love the idea, and I could benefit from it.
But that’s just me.
The only way for someone to find out whether it works or not is to spend money on it.
But then you’ll just spend $200 on something and waste precious time asking for a refund.
As of this writing, Beato is offering a bundle worth $100.
Along with the Ear Training program, you get the Beato Book 4.0, Quick Lessons Pro guitar course, and 90 transcription PDF files.
This is probably the best you’d ever get.
In this case, I’d say that it’s worth it.
Then again, I feel like I’m giving him a pass on some issues that need sorting out.
Rick, you’re an incredible musician, producer, engineer, and teacher.
But if you want to have an ear training course, you can’t just sell something above the market price just because it has your name on it.
Yes, this also includes user experience and overall website design.
For comparison’s sake, EarMaster Pro is $35.88 per year.
And it’s super intuitive and easy to use.
Take from that what you will.
Beato Ear Training: Conclusion
I hope this article has helped you think through whether Beato Ear Training is for you!
And if you want to read more about guitar programs and software on this blog, then check out:
Lastly, feel free to leave a message in the comments below if you have questions about this or another guitar-related topic!
4 Responses
Very useful article and accurate too. I have the program and it’s quite glitchy technically and I’ve reached out for support with little to no response. I spend double the time I plan to on Ear training to compensate for the lost time dealing with technical issues. Its great syllabus but Mr Beato, do better.
Hey Liso,
Thanks for adding your input! It’s helpful for my readers to know that others who have used the ear training agree with the issues I’ve presented here!
I’ve noticed 3 problems. First are things that are mislabeled. Second is careless performance. Particularly with triads, he sometimes plays one of the notes so quietly that I can only hear two notes. Third is careless recording. I sometimes hear 4 notes when there should only be 3. I assume that this is the result of interaction between the harmonics of the three notes.
So basically, Beato didn’t double-check anything. He should have listened to everything on the website to make sure it was all labeled correctly. He should have listened to each recording to make sure that all the notes were audible. And he should have checked for things that went wrong in the recording process.
The intervals and major and minor triad inversions went well for me. For some reason the diminished triad inversions are more likely to be mislabeled. Also, if the only 2 audible notes in a diminished triad are a tritone apart, you have no clue what the inversion is. The Phrygian and Lydian triads are inversions of each other and I have trouble telling them apart. Same with sus2 and sus4 triads. Things would go a bit better if they were all labeled correctly.
I bought the bundle on sale, so I spent less than $99. So far I haven’t listened to anything except the ear training. I’m not sure whether or not it was worth it. I’m going to keep working at it, but the problems create some doubt, and doubt is demotivating.
In fairness to Beato, it’s very easy to make mistakes in music publishing. I teach guitar and all the music books published for students have typos in them. Also, the fixed cost of producing this ear training course, which is a life time of studying, teaching, and playing music, is quite high. However, the marginal cost of supplying me with his product is close to $0. So the effort to ensure everything was correct would have been a small percentage of the fixed cost, and would have gone a long way toward justifying the difference between consumer price and marginal cost.
Hi there,
Thanks for this detailed response! I’m sure this will be valuable to prospective purchasers!