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Firo – An Excellent App for Creating Music Tracks

July 23, 2015 by admin

firo Firo is an app, currently free, for creating music on your iPad. I’ve tried a lot of music creation apps over the years, Firo is as good or better than all of them.

Firo is intended to be a full-fledged music creation tool. It doesn’t contain tutorials or lessons on making music, that is up to you. What Firo provides is twelve instruments that you can play on the app’s digital keyboard. The keyboard includes keys for one-touch creation of chords to lay down as context for the rest of the song that you’re creating. You can create and record loops to as harmony to the melody you’re creating. Or you can reverse that and play your melody on a loop while working on your song’s harmony.

Completed Firo projects can be saved on your iPad, shared on SoundCloud, opened in iMovie, or saved as MIDI files to use in other projects.

Firo could be an excellent app for use in music classes in which students are learning about composition. The app could also be helpful in developing music for use in video projects.

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Filed Under: High School, Middle School Tagged With: Firo, free apps, ipad app, Music, Music Apps

Five iPad Apps for Learning to Create Music

September 17, 2014 by admin

Screen Shot 2014-09-17 at 9.45.52 AMLast week’s post about Piano Maestro prompted a couple of people to write to me with questions about other apps for helping students learn to play music. Here are some iPad apps for that purpose.

Chromatik is an iPad app that makes it fun to learn and practice new music. Chromatik offers recordings of popular songs along with the sheet music to play them on more than a dozen instruments. The recordings and sheet music are yours to use for seven days. Chromatik includes an option to make a recording of your playing of a song. You can share highlights of your recordings with others through email, Facebook, and Twitter. Chromatik does require you to have an email address and some of the songs may not be appropriate for students younger than high school (the songs are all hits you’ve heard on the radio, but that doesn’t mean you want 12 year olds playing them in your school). A classroom-friendly of Chromatik is offered to schools. That version requires a $3.99 in-app purchase to unlock all of the features.

Notezilla is a neat iPad app that features sheet music synchronized to recordings. As you listen the recording the sheet music scrolls along. You can choose to see a red line moving to indicate the notes being played or choose to not see the red line at all. You can select sections of a recording to hear and see in your Notezilla library. For the student who is learning to play a new selection Notezilla provides an option to slow the tempo for a recording could be helpful. Students can also choose to turn on or turn off the display of sheet music for specific instruments heard in a recording. Being able to see and hear where their instruments fit into the overall score of a piece could help students be better prepared for the transition from practicing in isolation to rehearsing with a full orchestra or band.

Figure is an iPad app for creating music and sound loops. You don’t have to have any musical talent or inclination to create music with the Figure app. To create music you simply have to drag your finger across an instrument to create a pattern. You can combine patterns across drums, bass, and lead guitar. Each pattern can be adjusted for tempo and key. The volume of each pattern can be adjusted individually then blended with the others. When you’re happy with the music you have made you can export it to SoundCloud or iTunes or send it to a friend via email. Figure could be a good app for students to use to develop soundtracks to use in video projects or to use as bumper music in podcasts. Of course, the app could also be good for students to use to just experiment with tempo and key change.

JoyTunes Recorder Master is a fun iPad app that students can use to learn to play the recorder. The app asks students to play specific notes to complete games on their iPads. Students play notes to their recorders to avoid obstacles, collect bonuses, and scare away evil birds.

Piano Maestro (formerly known as Piano Mania) is a neat iPad app from Joy Tunes. The new Piano Maestro app offers lessons on playing the piano. Students place their iPads on their pianos or electronic keyboards to view the lesson as they play along. The app offers challenges of varying difficulty from simple one-hand lessons to complex lessons requiring the use of both hands. Students earn points for completing each lesson and mastering new songs. Teachers can check their students’ progress by having students use the “connect to teacher” feature of Piano Maestro. Piano Maestro is free to download and access for basic lessons. More difficult lessons and the larger catalog of music requires purchasing the premium features. This fall Joy Tunes is offering Piano Maestro’s premium features for free to registered music teachers and their students. The premium features includes a library of more than 800 songs including pop music songs from artists like Bruno Mars and Taylor Swift.

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Filed Under: Elementary School, Middle School Tagged With: free ipad apps, ipad apps, Music, Music Lessons

Piano Maestro – A Fun Way to Learn to Read and Play Sheet Music

September 12, 2014 by admin

Screen Shot 2014-09-12 at 9.58.05 AM Piano Maestro (formerly known as Piano Mania) is a neat iPad app from Joy Tunes. The new Piano Maestro app offers lessons on playing the piano. Students place their iPads on their pianos or electronic keyboards to view the lesson as they play along. The app offers challenges of varying difficulty from simple one-hand lessons to complex lessons requiring the use of both hands. Students earn points for completing each lesson and mastering new songs. Teachers can check their students’ progress by having students use the “connect to teacher” feature of Piano Maestro.

Screen Shot 2014-09-12 at 10.07.46 AM

Piano Maestro is free to download and access for basic lessons. More difficult lessons and the larger catalog of music requires purchasing the premium features. But this fall Joy Tunes is offering Piano Maestro’s premium features for free to registered music teachers and their students. The premium features includes a library of more than 800 songs including pop music songs from artists like Bruno Mars and Taylor Swift.

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Filed Under: Elementary School, Middle School Tagged With: free ipad apps, ipad apps, Music, Music Lessons, piano maestro

Notezilla – Sheet Music Synchronized to Beautiful Recordings

July 1, 2014 by admin

Screen Shot 2014-07-01 at 8.16.56 AM Notezilla is a neat iPad app that features sheet music synchronized to recordings. As you listen the recording the sheet music scrolls along. You can choose to see a red line moving to indicate the notes being played or choose to not see the red line at all. You can select sections of a recording to hear and see in your Notezilla library.

For the student who is learning to play a new selection Notezilla provides an option to slow the tempo for a recording could be helpful. Students can also choose to turn on or turn off the display of sheet music for specific instruments heard in a recording. Being able to see and hear where their instruments fit into the overall score of a piece could help students be better prepared for the transition from practicing in isolation to rehearsing with a full orchestra or band.

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Filed Under: High School, Middle School Tagged With: free apps, free ipad apps, Music, music education

Chromatik – Have Fun Learning New Music

February 27, 2014 by admin

Screen Shot 2014-02-24 at 3.51.52 PM Chromatik is a free iPad app that makes it fun to learn and practice new music. Chromatik offers recordings of popular songs along with the sheet music to play them on more than a dozen instruments. The recordings and sheet music are yours to use for seven days. Chromatik includes an option to make a recording of your playing of a song. You can share highlights of your recordings with others through email, Facebook, and Twitter.

Evernote Camera Roll 20140224 155019

Chromatik does require you to have an email address and some of the songs may not be appropriate for students younger than high school (the songs are all hits you’ve heard on the radio, but that doesn’t mean you want 12 year olds playing them in your school). A classroom-friendly of Chromatik is offered to schools. That version requires a $3.99 in-app purchase to unlock all of the features.

Evernote Camera Roll 20140224 155022

Both versions of Chromatik offer tools for annotating the sheet music that you access through the app.

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Filed Under: High School, Middle School Tagged With: Music, Music Apps, music education

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