Pandora
You may already be a fan of Pandora Radio, the fabulous Web gadget at www.pandora.com, where the musically adventurous go to discover new artists based on their current favorites. Now Pandora Radio is available on your iPhone. Download the free application Pandora, type in the name of your favorite singer or composer. Pandora uses an algorithm called the Music Genome Project to select a recording that it guesses you will like. You give it a “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” to help it decipher your musical preferences.
As I test, I plugged in the name of my favorite composer, Olivier Messiaen. After a selection from his Quatuor pour le fin du temps, Pandora selected a piece by Mompou. I love Mompou! I had forgotten all about Mompou! Next, Pandora chose a prelude by Herbert Howells. Pandora, how did you know? I haven’t listened to Howells in years. How did you dig through my past and read how I used to listen to CDs of his works in my dorm room?
Well, Pandora is happy to share with me the secret of her divination. I clicked on the little bullet list icon in the upper right corner, and Pandora explained, “We’re playing this track because it features a modern style, organ, modal harmony, a broad tempo, and many other similarities identified in the Music Genome Project.” Suddenly I felt very predictable.
Pandora will only work where phone or WiFi reception is available. In places where reception is foggy, songs may be slow to load or may halt midstream. It is also something of a battery drain.
Simplify Media
As I was waiting for my bus, sending a text message on my iPhone while listening to music on my iPod, a Jersey Goth kid noticed my multi-tasking and asked, “Excuse me, but why do you have an iPod if you have an iPhone?”
The answer? Well, musicians like us usually invest in the largest-memory iPods on the market, to contain our vast music collections. Apple’s iPod Classics goes up to 160 GB. The iPhone 3G has only a tenth the memory, maxing out at 16 GB for the more expensive version. This makes the “iPod” function of the phone practically useless for musicians, forcing us to carry around our large-capacity iPods in addition to our iPhones. A free application called Simplify Media finds a loophole in this aggravation.
After installing the Simplify Media software on both your computer and your iPhone or iPod touch, creating a screen name, and selecting to share your music (with people on your Simplify Media buddy list, which can be just yourself if you like), you can listen to your music files remotely with your device. Make sure your computer is on, and with Simplify Media and your iTunes open, select Simplify Media on your iPhone, and listen to anything in your iTunes. Additionally, Simplify Media automatically downloads artist information and lyrics from the Internet, whether you have them on your computer or not. It’s better than listening at home!
You can also allow friends to tap into your music supply—but you might be careful that there aren’t any voice memos of your last voice lesson on there first.
Like Pandora, Simplify Media only works when you can connect to the Internet, whether by cell or by WiFi, so it won’t work on the subway.
MooCowMusic Pianist
During a 10-minute break at our last church choir rehearsal, between pages of a particularly tricky anthem, the tenor behind me pulled out his iPhone. “I can’t get this line. I have to play through it,” he explained as he put on his headphones, turned the screen of the phone into a keyboard, and started tapping away at the digital notes.
You can find several piano applications for the iPhone, but by far the most popular is MooCowMusic Pianist. At $1.99, this application contains a full 88 keys, displayed an octave at a time, which you can toggle through note by note or octave by octave. By far the most practical of tools for singers, you can use MooCowMusic Pianist as a pitch pipe, to play through a melody or a tricky passage of music, or to check an interval. It also has a record feature for the composers among us (or the singers who need to hear their line over and over again) and a built-in metronome.
Room for improvement: The keys are a good size to be played by the touch of a finger. It would be nice if there were a way to zoom out or scroll through the keyboard smoothly, instead of being limited to just one octave at a time.
Metronome
If the metronome in MooCowMusic Pianist doesn’t have enough bells and whistles for you, you can find a lot of standalone metronome applications on the market.
At the entry level a free application, creatively titled Metronome, is available from marketwall.com. It resembles a mechanical metronome in appearance and function—you drag the virtual pendulum weight to the tempo you want, and it clicks back and forth. You can decide whether you want it to beat in 2/4, 3/4, or 4/4, but that is the only customizable option.
For the big spenders, another program with the original name Metronome, by Jonathan Johnson, is just 99 cents. This program includes an intriguing feature called “Tap-to-set,” where you can tap your desired tempo on the screen and the metronome will set itself to your tap. It also contains preset tempi, such as adagio and allegretto. As an added feature, you can subdivide the beat or turn it into triplets.
The beat is accurate most of the time, but sometimes gets “confused” and is obviously way off, especially at the extreme ends of the range or at the start of a new tempo. Otherwise this would be an ideal application. Ideally, future updates will fix the problems.
Subways
I was heading to a rehearsal in an unfamiliar part of Brooklyn when I realized I had no idea how to get there. The first step, naturally, would be to check a subway map, but pocket subway maps are a pain. They are usually not detailed enough or only cover Manhattan. Then I realized that there must be a map I could download for my iPhone.
Whether you are a NYC native or visiting for an audition, you will need to see a subway map at some point. The system is just too big, complex, and full of exceptions to the rules to be committed to memory. A subway map is an indispensable item to have on hand for all of us.
The first app I found and downloaded was NYC Subway Maps for iPhone and iPod Touch by Clint Bagwell Consulting. This app contains the entirety of the subway system, in addition to PATH, NJ Transit, LIRR, and Metro North. This is very convenient for those of us who commute to the suburbs for auditions and rehearsals (or vice versa).
The map interface however, is infuriating. There is no way to see the entire system in one map. You can only view an undetailed overview, or a detailed view that is separated by borough. For my trip to Brooklyn, I had to keep switching between the Manhattan map and the Brooklyn map to figure out which train to take. Furthermore, unlike the simplified “official” subway maps, the subway lines, interposed over a rough map of the city, are drawn to scale, making it sometimes difficult to discern where you can and can’t make connections. (It is also not clear at first glance which trains make express stops, which make local stops, and when.)
Dissatisfied, I downloaded City Transit by Magnetism Studios for the same $2.99 price tag. It includes only the MTA subway and not the suburban lines, but this app uses the familiar, official subway map we’re all comfortable with, and best of all, connects with the GPS map system to help you find the nearest station. For city use, this app is by far the winner.
Karajan
Any music school will force its voice students, often kicking and screaming, to go through ear-training classes. Recognizing intervals and scales is not something that comes easily to most vocalists, although they are the musicians that have the most practical use for such skills.
Karajan gives us an opportunity to hone those skills. Whether you choose the free sample “beginner” version or the $14.99 full version, Karajan will test your recognition of intervals, scales, chords, and even pitch. The free version, true to its name, will only be helpful to beginners—more challenging exercises are reserved for paying customers.
I only tested the free version, which I found too easy overall to keep my interest. However, if you want to improve your sight-reading skills, or need to recognize a Dorian scale, try out the beginner version and see if this app is for you.
Shakespeare
Whether you find yourself performing or watching Falstaff, Otello, Roméo et Juliette, or any of the other works of the Bard, Shakespeare is a staple in the literary diet of classical singers. Have his entire body of work at your fingertips with a free application called Shakespeare. Just tap Shakespeare’s face, select the play you want, and read it right on your phone. It’s as simple as that. You’ll never be in want for inspiration.
