apps for organists
Many of the music apps for iPad, iPhone and the like are of the Christmas cracker variety – fun for a few minutes but not of any lasting use. However here are some that have stood the test of time as far as I am concerned.
For grinding through daily aural tests practice for the CertRCO exam, I used Ear Trainer (from Dev4Phone) and Solfi2. Solfi2 was a bit clunky to use and neither was the complete answer, but they are better than nothing and hey, I passed.
(There’s a free Lite version of Ear Trainer if you want to trial it. I see Solfi2 has since upgraded to Solfi Ear Trainer 3 which looks less basic, but I have yet to see what it’s like.)
Most professional musicians have ClearTune on their smart phones, because it is just so good. 25 different temperament settings would you believe: Vallotti, Werkmeister, Kirnberger, Pythagorean, Zarlino Meantone (no I don’t know what that one is either) or just good old equal temperament. A friend of mine uses it every day to tune a harpsichord, and you can check the intonation of an instrument you are playing too.
There are quite a few metronome apps and I’m not saying this is necessarily the one you would like best, but I favour the Steinway Metronome because it’s quite simple and classy.
If you just need to give an A then Schott Music Tuning Fork will do that for you (at various concert pitches).
Fans of Spotify you will probably already know that you can download an app to listen on your mobile as well as your computer. I’ve been studying new repertoire by downloading my Spotify playlists so I can listen offline on my iPhone when travelling.
Avid Scorch will open Sibelius files on your iPad and play them back, with the option to transpose, select parts, and change the tempo. It’s good if you want to demo a piece. It also opens pdfs. I was asked to “play something” on a hotel piano by friends last summer, so propped my iPad up and played from what I happened to have on it. (They got Rameau, which I don’t think was really their bag.)
