Useful Apps

There are many apps out there that can help you become a better musician. There are tuner apps and metronome apps, apps to help you write your own music and many others. Here are a couple free or inexpensive apps that some of us use to help us improve our playing or help organize our music. We all happen to use iPads, but these apps may be available for other operating systems.

Scanner Pro: Take a photo of your music and organize alphabetically, or by latest modified or created. You can also make folders of music, perfect for creating a set list for an upcoming event. Purchase a tablet holder (I got mine from Hola! Music) and take the music holder part off your music stand and insert the tablet holder. You can also insert the tablet holder into a mic stand, which takes up even less room. You will need to remove your tablet from its case. A number of tablet holders on stage is less distracting to the audience than a bunch of music stands, and it is easier for the fiddlers to be seen.

Amazing Slowdowner: Video someone playing a tune you want to learn. Import it into Amazing Slowdowner and listen. You can slow it down or speed it up, change the pitch, repeat the whole tune or set it to repeat only a phrase up to ten times. My fiddle teacher records a tune for me to listen to, and I will set it on repeat while I am doing dishes or folding laundry or driving. At my next lesson, she can start teaching it to me, and it comes more easily because the tune is in my head. When I practice, I wear my right headphone over my ear so I can hear the tune, but not the left because I want to hear my fiddle, and I play along with her. I can easily slow the tune down, or just work on parts of it, as needed. It also works great for practicing twin fiddle! I can listen to the harmony and play the melody at the same time. I often video friends playing tunes I don't know, and import them into the app to work on.

Do you have any apps you would like to recommend? Please let us know and send a description and we can add them to this list.