iphone apps

[Semiquaver]

For those who have an phone or anyone thinking of getting one there are a number of good apps that my help you with your jazz.

ireal Book...this is worth getting the phone for. It is a real book with about 800 jazz charts. For copyright reasons it only contains the chord charts and no melody but is still worth the £4.99. It can transpose the tune to any key and includes each one for concert, Bb, Eb and F instruments.

Octavian...this is a good aid memoire and education tools for learning scales chords and alternatives. Once you have chosen the scale/chord it will play you the sound which is good for ear training.

Jazz Buddy is a free app that lists all scales and chords in letter form. This does not play the sounds but is good for a quick reference guide if need to know the chord spelling.

Another i find usful is one of the many piano apps. Having a keyboard on my phone means i can noodle in piece on the train. I can try riffs and do some ear traing with intervals etc etc.

Obviously the phone is an ipod as well so adding a Aebersold track or a jazz tune is a further advantage.

No i am not an Apple saleman but since having my new toy I have realised how my jazz education can benefit from it.

I pass this on for your own thoughts and consideration.

 

[SteveK]

Glad to met someone else who puts technology to use.
I have the following iPhone apps which I find very useful (most useful to least useful order).
1) Cleartone Chromatic tuner
This is great for getting a reference pitch when you first start a session but I also use it somethings in scale practice to make sure I am on pitch on long notes. I really try to avoid using this unnecessarily as it undoubtedly slows down you own ear development.
2) Metronome - speaks for itself. Great graphics - looks like the old pyramid type.
3) Shazam - when you hear a tune n the radio and you want ot identify it - you need Shazam. I remember when I first got into Jazz (just after the bay city rollers disbanded)) ) I kept hearing Coltrane on the radio but didn't know who it was it took a ages to find out as the DJs aren't always good at telling you after the song. With Shazam this need never happen again. ALos available on Mac and PC I believe.
4) Decibel - a very handy little decibel meter. Limited by the upper range of the iphone microphone at about 110db but still very handy to have.
5) Musicstudio - more pricey than the average app but a very handy little all in one electronic studio. From a keyboard input on the screen you can record multiple tracks from a wide choice of instruments and then edit, mix etc to you hearts content. Actually I use it mostly for transcribing tunes when I am travelling. i.e. think of a tune and then pick it out on the key board.
6) Fourtrack - just like a good old fashion four track recorder but on your iphone. Fantastic quality. Great for recording yourself and facing up to the truth;}. 20 Years ago this would have cost thousands of pounds for a real one.
7) Relative Pitch lite - free ear training app.
8) Pocket girlfriend - nothing to do with music at all but she always agrees when I ask if I should buy another horn.
To be honest I haven't bought this last app as my wife is an absolute cracker who is always supportive and is standing next to me right now .

By the way, for those of you who don't have an iphone, you might think we are pushing the boat out with all these apps but in fact they are rarely more that a couple of quid each.

Steve

 

[PCthug]

Just downloaded Trace Tuner, which is a great free tuning aid, that you can set for the Alto.
Also Metronome which shows me how far out of rythm i am :shocked:

 

[AdamBradley]

Holy hell at the real book! I can always pitch melodies but the chords can take ages, what a find!

I'll be checking the others out shortly!

Only ones relevant that I have are Cleartune, basic tuner and pitch finder, and ofcourse Tapatalk, for viewing this forum!

 

[half diminished]

Yeh I use it. Karen (Sharp) my teacher says she's seen guys use it on live gigs and she plays with some top musicians!

 

[visionari1]

Yup just getting into the iPhone revolution.

There is a Sunny Rollins one (free) Sonny Rolllins app.
Which has links to video's and his bio material.

Also looking at one called ..... Saxophone in Reach.... by Taimor Sullivan, a classical Sax player who also features in Sue Terry's book "Practise Like the Pro's"

I'll go look for some of these others.

Many thanks fella's

It's all good, although time spent on the horn is precious and ultimately, computers and the like do take some time away.
Coltrane & Parker never new anything about em!

Maybe they would have got there faster, but I don't thinks so?

Cheers & Ciao
Jimu

 

[SteveK]

This is not an iPhone app, yet, but has obvious parallels...

www.midomi.com

You can basically sing/play into it and it will attempt to recognise it. Note this is not the same as Shazam which only matches the digital stream and not the actual music itself.

Steve

 

[visionari1]

Ok I downloaded the Tapatalk app and can view the cafe sax forum....any idea how I can post on it, from the iPhone.....I read you shake the phone to post...which doesn't work, do I need to log in or register or is it something else.

I have the new 16 g 3GS iPhone, the Cafe Sax page doesn't change to landscape either, or is that normal?

Must admit it's rather cool to be in bed checking the Cafe Sax forum.

Help on posting, please. so I don't have to leave the sheets!

Ciao
Jimu

 

[Pete Thomas]

I can't get the shaky thing to work.
But there is a reply icon at the top right of the post.

Yes you do need to be logged in

 

[visionari1]

Thanks Pete, Your a star, mate!

I'll be iphone posting in no time.
Ciao
Jimu

 

[visionari1]

Good one Pete,

This is from the iPhone and not in bed.............yet!

Ciao
Jimu
Ps the landscape function does work too.

 

[Pete Thomas]

To make the shaky reply work you need to turn it on in your iPhone main settings


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[visionari1]

Ta ......oooooh the hippy hippy shakes!
Ciao
Jimu