MusicPractice
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Tabular for Mac makes reading and writing tab music easy
Chromatic Lab's Tabular (US$19.99) is an all-in-one application for reading, editing and writing tablature music with a Mac. If you're a musician, music teacher or composer of music, on a percussive or stringed instrument, and you use tablature instead of music notation, Tabular has got all the bases covered. With a detailed, built-in interactive tutorial to get you started and help you understand and learn tab music, and an easy-to-use interface with Retina display support, Tabular is simple to get your head around and a pleasure to use. For starters, Tabular is a place to store all your tab music. Its library feature allows you to group and organize your tab music in one easy-to-find place. Import Guitar Pro 5 or MIDI files into Tabular and export them as PDF, MIDI or plain-text (ASCII) formats. When it comes to reading and practicing, Tabular has a looping function, adjustable playback / tempo speed -- so you can start slow and increase the speed as you improve -- and a configurable speed trainer that increases the tempo after every loop -- a challenging way to encourage honing your skills. Tabular also keeps track of your hard work with practice logs. If you compose, Tabular makes it really easy to enter tab using the keyboard. A virtual fretboard displays where each note is played. At your disposal is a large bank of notations, including legato, vibrato, bends and grace notes, to name a few. One feature I particularly like is custom templates, where you can create and save your most common instrument configurations as a template. Tabular also has full printing support. Finally, Tabular supports full rendering of the musical staff, meaning you can see the music in notation form alongside the tablature. If you are learning to play, practice or teach a stringed instrument (with three - 12 strings) or a percussive instrument -- and you don't read music notation -- Tabular is a fantastic way to organize, practice and write tablature music.
Better Ears: A music theory and ear training app for Mac
Better Ears (US$24.99) is a new Mac app that teaches you music theory while enhancing your hearing through training exercises. Do you know your intervals? Your minor second, fifth or major seventh from a given root note? Or a major harmonic scale from a mixolydian chordal mode? Not only can you read it and play it, but can you hear it? With 10 different exercise modes, Better Ears will train you to hear, play and read music in a simple and intuitive way. The app provides training ranging from interval and scale recognition to key signature recognition and chord music reading. The app comes with two modes: learning and training. There are four levels of difficulty, from beginner to professional. Choose your level and start with an area to learn. For example, choose beginner and scale recognition. You're be presented with ionian and pentatonic major scales and aeolian and pentatonic minor scales. Click on one, and the scale is played and displayed on the virtual keyboard (or guitar fretboard), written on the music score, and an explanation of what the scale is and what it means is displayed from Wikipedia. When you feel confident that you can recognize, play and read the scales, switch to training mode and hit the play button. The scale is played and you have to listen and identify what kind of scale it is. If you get it wrong, Better Ears tells you what the right answer is and then moves on to the next question. Better Ears gives you stats and feedback on how well you're doing and whether you're improving or not. Better Ears has many different virtual sounds, so if you're learning an instrument other than piano, you're sure to find something that suits your instrument. For keyboard / piano players, you can hook up a MIDI keyboard and play using that instead of the virtual one. It's a brilliant way to practice your scales and become familiar with the instrument. I really like Better Ears. It bundles theory and application into one easy-to-use package. There are no rules as to how you practice, you just go for it. It also looks good and performs well. However, I would love to see an easier way to practice the exercises in a given key. At present, Better Ears moves all around the keys as it cycles through the exercises. You can limit to one key from a control menu, but it would be nice to have an upfront way of controlling such parameters, so you can focus on practicing in one key. Better Ears is available from the Mac App Store now for $24.99 or the beginner-only version is free.
Anytune, a music practise app with detailed functionality
On TUAW we've looked at many apps which let you slow down the tempo or change the pitch of a song to help you practice music more effectively. And that's exactly what Anytune does, but with a great degree of detail and some extra features to help even further. Anytune is a free, universal app, but with in app purchases (IAPs) to add extra features and functionality, turning Anytune into Anytune Pro+. The free version of Anytune lets you import music from your iOS library, adjust the pitch and tempo with great detail -- without affecting sound quality -- and select and mark certain parts of the song to loop for focused practicing. IAPs (from US$1.99 to $12.99) include features like higher-quality audio, importing music from Dropbox / email / WiFi (although I don't know why you wouldn't just import songs from iTunes to your iDevice, but perhaps there are some niche users who will take advantage) and AirPlay support. Some standout IAP features include "Step-It-Up" interval trainer, to challenge you in your practicing, "FineTouch" EQ lets you draw out particular dynamics of a song (guitar, vocal, bass) and exporting an adjusted song for practice at a later stage. If you're looking for an app to help you practice your instrument to music, Anytune is a well-designed and easy-to-use app. It's certainly worth checking out, especially since its core features are free. Anytune is available from the iOS App Store now.
Practice Timer keeps track of how long you practice your instrument
Continuing in the theme of iOS apps that help you practice with your instrument to become a better musician, Practice Timer keeps a log of how many seconds, minutes and hours you've spent practicing. It is said that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become a master of something. Practice Timer gives you a simple indication of just how far along you are. The idea is simple, and so is the app. When you start playing your instrument, the app starts a timer. When you stop, the timer stops. Start again, and the timer picks up from where you last left it. Unfortunately, the app picks up any audible noise present -- there's no fancy algorithm to distinguish what is a musical instrument and what is the TV. However, there is an adjustable input volume threshold to customize to the volume of what you're practicing on, so unwanted input can be accounted for. Additionally, when looking back, there's a calender that tracks your progress on a daily and monthly basis. Simply select a range of dates to see how much time you've put in at specific points in a month. You can print, email and brag about your log to your Facebook and Twitter friends, too. In practice (excuse the pun), Practice Timer is probably going to be beneficial to kids who need a bit of encouragement and discipline in learning the art of practicing. For everyone else, it's probably not going to be all that necessary to track your practice time in this much detail, but each to their own. Practice Timer would also benefit from some extra features to aid with practicing, like a built-in metronome. Practice Timer is available from the iOS App Store for US$1.99. But do check out a couple of the free options on the App Store first before taking the plunge with Practice Timer.
Highnote for iOS gives musicians tempo and key control over their music
Highnote allows you to slow down or speed up the tempo of songs in your iOS music library, without affecting the pitch or key. It also allows you to change the key without affecting the tempo. Any aspiring musician will need to spend hours practicing and honing their skills in order to master their instrument. Part of this practice requires playing with other musicians and learning and mimicking what they play and how they play it. And very often, this happens by playing along to a track or particular song again and again. However, sometimes what you're playing along to can be too fast for your current ability. Or perhaps you can't quite hear exactly what the musician is playing because he is playing it so quickly. Or perhaps you're not ready to play along in that particular key, but you could in another. That's where an app like Highnote is invaluable While there are other apps on the iOS App Store that offer similar features, Open Planet Software's Highnote offers a simple, clear and beautiful-looking interface that allows you to focus on practicing, without any distractions. Simply choose a track from your iOS music library, select the volume and adjust tempo and pitch on the fly. If you get lost, hit reset to restore the song to its original state. An additional, well-thought-out feature is built-in AirPlay functionality. Let's face it, you're more likely to practice while listening to the music through a powerful set of speakers than you are through your iPhone's speaker! Highnote makes AirPlay easy to turn on and off from within the app. If you're a musician, music student, teacher or indeed anyone that performs with music, Highnote is a brilliant way to slow things down (or change the key), so you can practice effectively. Highnote is available from the iOS App Store for US$2.99 now.
