Let's face it, we are on our phones and tablets all the time right? I mean ALL THE TIME! It is sometimes hard to pull ourselves away from electronic media and actually practice isn't it? It takes dedication and discipline, and all of us inevitably fail once in a while (hopefully not too often), and end up watching Netflix or YouTube for an extra hour instead of getting the horn out. Once we finally do get the horn out and are ready to get down to work, why not use our electronics to help us? We are always on our phones anyways, so we might as well use them productively.
Theses are a few apps I use when practicing:
-Tonal Energy is a great tuning app that works well on most phones. It includes is a tuner that you can calibrate to a variety of temperaments (just intonation, equal temperament, meantone, Pythagorean tuning, and many more). There is a drone machine and the cool thing about this is you can set any interval in any of the temperaments mentioned above. They even include many different instruments sounds for the drone. The metronome is great and can go really slow, which is useful for some of the practice techniques listed here, and also offers various subdivisions and time signature settings. There is also a built in recorder that allows you to view the tuner upon playback, getting instant feedback on how in tune you just were. PS. Everyone should record themselves as often as possible!
-Of the many free drum machine apps out there, MetroDrum is a simple and very easy to use option. Any of the free apps will work wonders when you want a break from the metronome. Some of the beats can get a little cheesy sounding in my opinion, but there are plenty that are pretty fun to play along with. Most of these only work for 4/4 time, with little to no options for 3/4 or other odd meters.
-When practicing demanding literature, I like to time myself so I make sure I rest enough to recover. Tom Hooten showed me Seconds Pro, and said he uses it frequently when practicing. There is a free version, but for $5 or less you can customize it to fit your needs. I set mine to time five minutes of playing, then three minutes of rest, but there are way more possibilities than that. You can name each interval, and play an audio track for each interval. I hope to soon set up one with a few minutes of drones on different notes so I can go easily from one to the other. If I remember correctly, Tom Hooten had his whole warm up programmed into the app complete with built in rests, drones, and a metronome.
-For ear training, Perfect Ear 2 is a great tool to use when taking a break from the horn. Interval training, chord identification, scale identification and melodic dictation are just a few of the functions of this app. Each area starts out easy and progresses to a new, more difficult section after 10 to 15 exercises. You can jump to any section you want and repeat any of them as many times as you need, and at the end of each section it will calculate the percentage you got correct and let you know how you did. A very good tool for both beginners and professionals. Once again there is a free version, but you get way more options for only a couple bucks.
-Another ear trainer that is similar and also offers help with tuning is the Interval Recognition app. The tuning mode will play two notes and you choose whether the second note is flat or sharp. You can adjust how out of tune the second note is, setting it anywhere from 100 cents sharp/flat to 1 cent. I should say I am relatively new to this app, so I'm sure there is more it has to offer.
-TimeGuru offers a really cool ability that I haven't seen in other apps. It is pretty intuitive as far as how you set the time signature and tempo, and the cool thing is it has a function that randomly mutes beats. You can adjust the percentage of random muting, and also set it to gradually increase the muting. This is helpful because it gives you 30 seconds or a minute (whichever you pick) to get used to the tempo before it starts the random muting. This is also one of the few metronomes I have found that goes all the way from 1 to 16 beats in a measure, which is great for odd meter stuff. The random muting is great for longer passages, such as an etude with steady time, and is really fun to do when improvising jazz and setting the "random muting" to 50% or higher. If you think your time is solid, this is the ultimate test! I could see this being really helpful for players who typically play for longer periods of time such as rhythm section players.
These are just a few of the endless number of apps out there that I find helpful. I don't have any association with any of them other than simply using them often. Comment below if there are any other apps that you use productively, and stay tuned for another post with links to relevant resources, podcasts, blogs, and more!
Theses are a few apps I use when practicing:
-Tonal Energy is a great tuning app that works well on most phones. It includes is a tuner that you can calibrate to a variety of temperaments (just intonation, equal temperament, meantone, Pythagorean tuning, and many more). There is a drone machine and the cool thing about this is you can set any interval in any of the temperaments mentioned above. They even include many different instruments sounds for the drone. The metronome is great and can go really slow, which is useful for some of the practice techniques listed here, and also offers various subdivisions and time signature settings. There is also a built in recorder that allows you to view the tuner upon playback, getting instant feedback on how in tune you just were. PS. Everyone should record themselves as often as possible!
-Of the many free drum machine apps out there, MetroDrum is a simple and very easy to use option. Any of the free apps will work wonders when you want a break from the metronome. Some of the beats can get a little cheesy sounding in my opinion, but there are plenty that are pretty fun to play along with. Most of these only work for 4/4 time, with little to no options for 3/4 or other odd meters.
-When practicing demanding literature, I like to time myself so I make sure I rest enough to recover. Tom Hooten showed me Seconds Pro, and said he uses it frequently when practicing. There is a free version, but for $5 or less you can customize it to fit your needs. I set mine to time five minutes of playing, then three minutes of rest, but there are way more possibilities than that. You can name each interval, and play an audio track for each interval. I hope to soon set up one with a few minutes of drones on different notes so I can go easily from one to the other. If I remember correctly, Tom Hooten had his whole warm up programmed into the app complete with built in rests, drones, and a metronome.
-For ear training, Perfect Ear 2 is a great tool to use when taking a break from the horn. Interval training, chord identification, scale identification and melodic dictation are just a few of the functions of this app. Each area starts out easy and progresses to a new, more difficult section after 10 to 15 exercises. You can jump to any section you want and repeat any of them as many times as you need, and at the end of each section it will calculate the percentage you got correct and let you know how you did. A very good tool for both beginners and professionals. Once again there is a free version, but you get way more options for only a couple bucks.
-Another ear trainer that is similar and also offers help with tuning is the Interval Recognition app. The tuning mode will play two notes and you choose whether the second note is flat or sharp. You can adjust how out of tune the second note is, setting it anywhere from 100 cents sharp/flat to 1 cent. I should say I am relatively new to this app, so I'm sure there is more it has to offer.
-TimeGuru offers a really cool ability that I haven't seen in other apps. It is pretty intuitive as far as how you set the time signature and tempo, and the cool thing is it has a function that randomly mutes beats. You can adjust the percentage of random muting, and also set it to gradually increase the muting. This is helpful because it gives you 30 seconds or a minute (whichever you pick) to get used to the tempo before it starts the random muting. This is also one of the few metronomes I have found that goes all the way from 1 to 16 beats in a measure, which is great for odd meter stuff. The random muting is great for longer passages, such as an etude with steady time, and is really fun to do when improvising jazz and setting the "random muting" to 50% or higher. If you think your time is solid, this is the ultimate test! I could see this being really helpful for players who typically play for longer periods of time such as rhythm section players.
These are just a few of the endless number of apps out there that I find helpful. I don't have any association with any of them other than simply using them often. Comment below if there are any other apps that you use productively, and stay tuned for another post with links to relevant resources, podcasts, blogs, and more!
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