Indispensable app for Music Teachers?

I have in the last year used an app called AnyTune when I have needed to learn a song for which there is no sheet music. I found this app because I needed an app that allowed me to slow down the music as well as create looped sections to repeat. I’m not sure how I found the app in the first place because if you do a Google search for “apps to slow down music” AnyTune does not come up. I have enjoyed using this app in its free version at first and then I paid the $1.99 to remove the ads. Then last night the developer contacted me and offered a promo code for the HQ version. I took him up on his offer. After using AnyTune HQ it becomes very apparent why we should be paying a little bit more for some of these apps. Let’s talk about what AnyTune does…

• Slow down music, without changing pitch unless….
• Adjust to pitch of a song without distorting the sound
• Loops sections of the song
• Name hit points in the song – like rehearsal numbers from a score or sections like Verse or Chorus
• Use their Fine Touch EQ to do things like highlight a specific instrument or vocal
• Plug your instrument into a USB audio interface and play along with the recording [from AnyTune's website-(Use LiveMix together with Anytune’s FineTouch equalizer to pull out frequencies of a particular instrument. Then use LiveMix to insert yourself into the music while reducing the song’s original instrument! LiveMix and FineTouch EQ really help you to feel like you’re playing in the band.)]

Using just the basic version I did feel limited by the restrictions of that version. With the full version I am no longer feeling restricted. Things like being able to get music in to the app is easy. Being able to set up a bunch of hit points per song is easy. Being able to quickly jump back and forth in my loops is easy. I can quickly adjust the start and stop points of my loop point. I can even share all of the marks/hitpoints and settings for all of my songs that I import into AnyTune. The sound quality is wonderful and type of files AnyTune can handle is great.

GETTING MUISC INTO ANYTUNE:

1. Access my iPad music library – not DRM files or iTunes Matched songs that are not downloaded to my device
2. Use DropBox
3. Use Wi-Fi
4. Use the Open-In Menu (Which reminds me that I will be very glad to see iOS 6 which will allow us to see more than 10 apps in this menu)

MARKS/HITPOINTS:

1. Each song imported into AnyTune will have it’s own list of Marks
2. Select the Marks icon to see all of the Songs Marks
3. Touch a Mark and the song jumps to that spot in the song. (Marching season just got a lot better! Now we can rehearse any given section of a song as many times as we want. The 16 count drill at Measure 30 need more work? No problem, open AnyTune, tap the Meas. 30 mark, set the loop points and 10 seconds later you are running that drill music for the band to practice marching to!
4. Use Marks to quickly set loop points

VISUAL:

1. The display of AnyTune is beautifully done. What you see is very appealing.
2. You see a waveform of the song that allows you to visually see what the music doing.
3. Use that waveform to easily set your Marks and Loops
4. It is easy to figure out what is one the screen for most options. Some icons are not that easy to guess BUT…
5. Tap the ? icon if you are not sure what an icon is and orange boxes appear and clearly tell you what everything is that you may be confused about.
6. The help screen is nicely done and again is visually appealing!

AUDIO:

1. I should have started with this because it is the most important but they do say “Save the best for last!”
2. The HQ version of this app has wonderful sound quality.
3. Even when you slow down the music all the way, .10x’s, the music sounds great! The app will go down to .05x but I’m not sure I would describe that as sounding GREAT. I would say that it still sounds good though.
4. Even when you transpose music up or down by semi tones the sound is amazing. I had the music transposed up/down 12 semi tones and it was very much something that a person could use. Of course a Tuba part lowered by 12 semi tones is a bit strange! In my messing around though I had the music transposed more than a 1/2 octave and got distracted by other settings. I actually forgot it was transposed!
5. You can even use the transpose and speed functions at the same time!

USES:

1. Loop a section of a song and slow it down to learn it by ear. We should be learning music by ear all the time.
2. Using Marks/Hitpoints on the Marching Band field to practice marching drill to a specific section of your show that needs work. Even if that section is in the middle of the song. With Marks you will be right at the exact spot you want everytime! You can even loop it so the kids can march back and forth without stopping to save time and keep focus heightened.
3. Slow down a recording that is being struggled with and then play along with it. In fact there is a feature that allows you to loop a section 10x’s with each time being gradually faster until you arrive at the original tempo!
4. Slow down a recording so that you can hear all the intricate details and give your ears time to pick up on it! Like those fast quad fills and mallet runs.
5. Use the FineTouch EQ to bring out your part more, like a Bass guitar part.
6. Use the FineTouch EQ to take your part out so you can play along with it kind of like a music minus 1 track
7. Add lyrics into the Lyrics tool so you can sing along with it and not mess up the lyrics!
8. Use this in Choir to rehearse with as it allows you to quickly jump to a specific part in your music. For instance if you only need to rehearse the Bridge of a song then you have no problem immediately jumping to the correct spot in the recording. In the old days you would have had to guess and we know where that gets you when your are in a room of middle school students!
9. Use the app to adjust the key of a song for a particular singer until you find the exact key that works for that student.
10. Set everything up for your tunes on your iPad and then email the Marks to your section leaders so that they can use them on their iPhones in AnyTune
11. Sing Karaoke with this app as it allows you to quickly change the pitch of songs, jump between songs and use the LiveMix feature. Now if they would only add some effects to apply to your voice. This could be fun!

I will keep you updated on how I use this in class and how well it works when I actually have students in the room! In fact I will be using this tonight at DrumLine rehearsal! I already have my marching band show music loaded and all the rehearsal marks Marked out! There are some nice comparison charts on their website so you can see exactly the difference between the three versions of AnyTune. They also compare AnyTune to another app that has the same idea in mind.

ForScore 4.0.1 has arrived!

If you are not aware of what ForScore is and if you are a musician I am surprised! Unless of course you have never thought about using your iPad to read your from. This is the very reason I first wanted an iPad so badly. I wanted all that music I usually carry around with me and have had to keep track of every year while teaching, to be in my iPad. ForScore is one of those apps I use to make this dream a reality.

Whether you are teaching music with your iPad, a performer using your iPad in concert instead of paper music or just someone who enjoys playing your instrument, you should have PDF music on your iPad! It’s the best!

For those of you who are users of ForScore already this is a great update, with things like:

1. Setlist sharing
2. More responsive annotations and page turns
3. New multi-select menu
4. Better Bookmark metadata editing and
5. Better handling of non-standard and landscape oriented pages.

Many of these new updates are not things that would make you say “Oh, look at THAT!” when you open the app after updating. All of the updates are going to make your life easier though while using ForScore.

Here are a few screen shots and explanations:

Here is the main screen after loading up a piece of music…

The Pink arrow is pointing to a search tool to help you find music FAST. The yellow arrow is pointing to the new method of inputting metadata. The orange arrow is pointing to the toolbox that you used to have to dig into to edit metadata in the past. Jump down below this screenshot and I will explain further.

Once you get your music into PDF format and start putting it into your ForScore app you will find that soon there will be a bunch of music to wade through every time you want to find a specific piece. Although the search tool is not new to this update I have to mention it’s use because it is so very useful. There are multiple ways to organize your music and if you tap the little eighth note icon there are multiple ways to find pieces in that menu. It’s too slow though. When I want a piece of music I usually know the title so I simply tap the search tool and start typing the name and up pops a list of results (including a setlist even in the screenshot below!). It is fast and easy plus it looks really cool being all semitransparent like that! Take a look…

Now something else that is also now semitransparent is the annotations tool bar. This also looks very nice…

And finally for one of the new features. The PDF files you load into ForScore obviously all have a title associated with them, this should come as no surprise. Each PDF can also have other metadata associated with each file as well to help you in organizing and finding each song that you want. I have hardly ever used this metadata in the past for two reasons. First it was too hidden and was buried in the toolbox icon. Ok, Ok, I here what you are saying… HIDDEN? Two taps was all it took! I know but that’s my opinion. Now this excuse is gone because in each title there is now a drop down menu right in my face to input this metadata (check out the yellow arrow above.) That gives me this screen….

In OSX if you create a PDF file you are given the option to input Title, Author, Subject and Keywords. These are all the same sort of metadata but ForScore has renamed them to what you see in the screenshot above. This drop down menu also is where you will connect a song from iTunes to a PDF allowing you to play back a song while you follow along in ForScore. Saves you from having to hop out of ForScore app into the iTunes app. The song can play while you turn pages. If you happen to turn the page to a different piece that song would stop playing. I could never for some reason remember where to make association in the ForScore App. Now it will be much easier to remember.

One other reason I have not used this metadata in the past much is that ForScore doesn’t actually change the original PDF file to insert this metadata permanently. There is a great post about this and how to make sure you backup ForScore so your hard work entering this metadata does not get lost. Head over to the Technology for the Classical Singer Blog and read about it. No since in my describing this process when it is done so well at that post. You really should add that post to your RSS reader feeds by the way!

I am looking forward to the sharing features. UnRealBook from Aron Nelson has had features for sharing setlists and files now for some time. This feature is very useful if you are in that sort of situation where others are using their iPad to read music. UnRealBook does have the feature as well where you can use two iPads for your music. In other words you will have two pages of music spread over two iPads! The two iPads work in sync with each other and the pages turn appropriately. What fun huh? oops…. sorry this post if about ForScore.

The page turns seem faster too.

OK… well as I only now have 1.5 weeks until I go to Band Camp, no jokes about “this one time…”, I will be discovering more new features that I appreciate and will keep you posted. As always… leave comments below about what you discover – Share the Joy!

Now, my wife has made me a big bowl of popcorn, real popcorn too not that microwave stuff! So I must go find some movie to watch….. Hmmmm…. the new Thousand Foot Kructch live DVD or the Yanni Live concert from YouTube or maybe I should watch the Presonus webcasts series or maybe a real DVD Movie. decisions decisions…..