What apps are you using to help with your practice?

What apps do you use to help with practicing?

My collection includes:

ForScore - I have this on my iPad and it’s where all of my scores are kept: I love it for so many reasons, partly because of all of the different ways you can organise scores to find things more easily. I’ve also loved playing from an iPad for so many years because it means I can easily play chamber music from a score rather than a part (I always know what my colleagues are up to and it doesn’t matter how many pages I have to turn), and I never need to worry about lighting, or wind if I’m playing outside. I combine this with a BlueTooth pedal to turn pages.

Tonal Energy - I use this tuner and metronome all the time - it’s got tons of functionality for helping me play both in tune and in time, it’s my favorite of all the metronome apps out there so I highly recommend checking it out!

Dorico - I use Dorico for any music notating I need to do: so any exercises you’ve had from me as part of our challenges or TWIs, those are all made in Dorico! I started using it after a composer friend of mine started working for them - but I find it relatively intuitive to use while also having a lot of options for creative music notating!

AppBlock - Unfortunately a necessary one for me - this helps me block any websites or social media platforms I might be tempted to go on while I’m trying to practice. I’ve just got the free version but that supplies me with all the functions I need!

I look forward to reading about what’s on your list!

19 replies

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    • nora78walz
    • 10 days ago
    • Reported - view

    Hi Heather, that's a good question. Your Apps sound very interesting. I use Tunable as a metronome and tuner. You can also record audio, and it then provides an analysis of which notes deviate by how much. Thats a good feature if you want to check out for tendencies of your instrument. I then also use ForScore :) don’t have to add any information. Then I sometimes use Anytune, which lets you change the tempo and pitch of the accompaniment or playalong quite easily and you can set markers for repeating any section.
    Before I owned an A clarinet I used muse score to transpose sections which were too complicated for sight reading. 
    I'd like to have an app that lets you make videos of yourself playing a duet. I don't know how to create that funny stuff. 

    Liebe Grüße 

    Nora

      • Head of Clarinet
      • Heather
      • 8 days ago
      • Reported - view

        Liebe Nora! Oh this is a great list! I don’t know what apps you use to create duets with yourself, but I know that  does a lot of this stuff, maybe he can tell us what he uses? 

      I was thinking it would some day be fun to make a tonebase clarinet choir where everyone records their part and I put it all together :) 

      I need to try your tuning app that records, that’s a really cool feature… 

    • nancy
    • 10 days ago
    • Reported - view

    I also have an app that lets you change the tempo without altering the pitch so you can practice playing along. It's called "Amazing Slow Downer." It helps me prepare for tricky chamber and orchestra pieces. 

     

    MetroTimer is a nice metronome app. It has a practice timer and blinking light but I still prefer my old fashioned Dr. Beat.

     

    I'm hoping to get my music on an iPad someday soon.  

     

    For music notation, I use Sibelius but it's expensive.

      • Head of Clarinet
      • Heather
      • 8 days ago
      • Reported - view

       Ah! You know what, Cecilia Kang talks about using the Amazing Slow Downer in her tonebase course and when I was confirming the edits I made a note to myself to try it and then completely forgot! Thanks for the reminder. 

      Dr. Beat! I haven’t thought about Dr. Beat in so long - I remember my teacher in my undergrad had one. 

      Dorico is also expensive (although it was one payment rather than a subscription which I liked, and I managed to find a code for 20% off) - I was using the free version for a long time but at some point I wanted to notate something with quarter tones and then you need the full version! 

    • Head of Clarinet
    • Heather
    • 8 days ago
    • Reported - view

    This is already a great list, I wonder if some of our other regulars are using interesting apps that don’t already appear here -  (oh I don’t even know if I got all the usual suspects in here because our group of regulars is growing a lot, this makes me so happy!) 

    • Valina_Eckley
    • 7 days ago
    • Reported - view

    Ahhh yes. I use TE Tuner, as I like to play with different tones and hear the vibrations of minor seconds.  It’s helpful for intonation practice.  
     

    there is also Music Scanner which takes scanned notation and does a midi representation of the parts. This can be helpful for tricky rhythms but it needs a pretty clean scan to work well.  
     

    The app I use most is Tomplay, which has a large collection of clarinet tunes at various levels and has the ability to play with a back tracks or isolate a solo part.  Plus it allows me to loop sections.  And they have a great selection of tunes to work on
     

    I’m working through the Rose Etudes via Tomplay, and am finding that you can spend a lifetime on these etudes and not even scratch the surface of what they can teach you 

      • Head of Clarinet
      • Heather
      • 6 days ago
      • Reported - view

       Ooh, Music Scanner sounds so useful, I have to try that one… what’s the backing track like for the Rose etudes?? I’m very curious (and you’re right about them!)

    • Luke
    • 7 days ago
    • Reported - view

    I try and limit my use of technology when it comes to practice, but it is useful at times! Here's my brief list:

     

    Phone:

    Recorder - Incredibly basic audio recording app so I can record myself practicing and then listen back for a more objective critique.

    Tuneable - I really only use the tuner; I have a physical metronome for timekeeping.

     

    Computer:

    Transcribe - An essential for learning tunes by ear. Slow down and speed up recordings without changing the pitch, transpose recordings, isolate and repeat sections, adjust equalization to hear different pitch bands better, etc. 

     

    That's about it! The more apps I have the more distracted I'll get. :)

      • Head of Clarinet
      • Heather
      • 6 days ago
      • Reported - view

       I hear you, that’s why one of mine is an app blocker… kind of pathetic but that’s where I am with my phone usage…

    • Donald_Lurye
    • 7 days ago
    • Reported - view

    I do mulit-window recordings and post them on Facebook and my YouTube channel, Dr. Don And His Clarinets...to which you should feel free to subscribe!  I do this using Acapella, which for now at least, exists solely as an iPhone app.  Pros - not super expensive, easy to learn to use and allows up to nine windows.  So your own clarinet choir is feasible.  Cons - you can't do much editing other than adjusting volume, pitch (don't do this, btw - much easier if you play in tune), laterality (R vs L), reverb and echo.  You also can't vary the volume of a track, so if the melody gets passed around, you just have to know when to raise or lower the volume while playing.  Unfortunately, you can't stitch pieces of the same track together, so if you splatter the last note of a track, you have to record the whole track again.  You also have to be mindful of your volume to avoid distortion.  However, I find that normally the pros outweigh the cons!

    • Donald_Lurye
    • 7 days ago
    • Reported - view

    with regard to your comment about our doing a Tonebase Clarinet Choir, this is feasible with Acapella, but takes some organization and patience. Acapella has an option do to a "collab" with others. Here's a video description: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdgx0v7G_jg.

      • Head of Clarinet
      • Heather
      • 6 days ago
      • Reported - view

       Hm, tricky, everyone would have to download the app and you’d have ot have a max of 9 people per group - I think I will probably try something where I send everyone a click track and we all record our own videos. The intonation might not be….perfect… but it could still be fun!

    • Donald_Lurye
    • 7 days ago
    • Reported - view

    And here's an example of a video I did with Acapella! This is a great duet version of Summertime from Porgy and Bess crafted by a Ilaș Victor, a young Romanian clarinetist. I believe this link will work for 30 days. https://share.icloud.com/photos/05b-ZELzRTdhePdu1yiq8C9gA

      • Head of Clarinet
      • Heather
      • 6 days ago
      • Reported - view

      Love it!

    • Sarah_Haley
    • 6 days ago
    • Reported - view

    At the moment I'm using the ABRSM Clarinet Practice Partner to play along with recordings of the A/B/C-1/2/3 pieces in various iterations of the syllabus. The app allows you to isolate the piano or the clarinet, and speed up or slow down the playback.  I also use Soundcorset for the tuner and metronome functions.

      • Head of Clarinet
      • Heather
      • 6 days ago
      • Reported - view

       I can’t believe I’ve not tried the ABRSM Practice Partner (although it’s been some years since I was regularly taking someone through those exams). Will check it out though! Sounds really helpful!

    • Jesse_Rogers
    • 6 days ago
    • Reported - view

    Hi Heather, I use TE tuner for intonation and for drone, I have used it for metronome, but have a Seiko "quartz" that I prefer because it's loud and doesn't transmit to my hearing aids if I have them in (TE tuners drone does that as well, don't like that).  I use IMSLP and ScribD to find music to download and forScore for displaying it.  I also use an physical exercise program called "Seconds" to time interleaved practice, it allows me to program different blocks of time; recently I've been using it to woodshed a small section for 3 1/2 minutes and then switch to a 30 second "performance" mode (playing a different small section as though I were in performance. Only one shot to get it right). The timer gives me 4 blocks (16 minutes) for each pair of sections, then I start a new set of blocks (same or different sections).  I am also using Google Drive to record the Goals I set and log my practice times.  I've been using it for just over a year.

      • Head of Clarinet
      • Heather
      • 5 days ago
      • Reported - view

       Hi Jesse - I *need* to try out Seconds - this is the kind of practice I have been recommending to people a lot lately and I had no idea there was an app that could do this, but of course there is! Thank you so much for sharing… 

      And you log your practice sessions, that’s so fantastic!

    • Jesse_Rogers
    • 5 days ago
    • Reported - view

    It's meant for workouts, so there may not be anything stock you can use.

    My fitness coach programmed this for me.  I can ask him how and try to pass it on.

    I would like to refine what I'm using now.

Content aside

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