In this article I'm going to share with you my top 4 iOS apps that I believe help songwriters in the music composition, arrangement and development of new material.
Voice Memos
A very obvious App and often forgotten by many. The Voice Memos App should be the best friend of every songwriter as it's always ready to capture the initial ideas for when that moment of inspiration strikes. Capturing the initial ideas of a song is vital to a song's development as it can be all too easy to forget the initial feelings and mindsets at the first sparks of inspiration as a song develops. The Voice Memos App also syncs with your iTunes library for easy and safe backups of your recordings.
Cost: FREE
PolyTune
A very useful tool for guitarist songwriters. TC Electronic's created this app based on the clever technology within their popular guitar stomp box PolyTune. PolyTune's "party piece" is the ability to display the sharp and flat notes within a single open strum of the guitar strings. I recommend this app not for this feature but for it's fluid reaction and definition of tuning as I've found a lot of guitar tuning apps to be either too lazy or erratic in displaying the pitch clearly.
Cost: £3.99 (Cost of stop box £70)
Tap Tempo BMP
It's all very well and good knowing your song's chords and vocals lines but what if you are going to perform the song with other musicians? What if you are going to record the song? One of the first questions you'll receive from fellow musicians is... "What's the speed of the song?" Finding the tempo of a song is as important as finding the correct key signature. If your song changes in tempo (speed) every time you play the song then the song will lack groove meaning it's not being giving an important aspect of it's identity. Use this app to define a song's tempo by simply tapping the button within the App so that a constant feel and continuity can be registered with your song.
Cost: FREE
SoundCloud
The SoundCloud App lets you record directly to your SoundCloud account enabling you to share your material to a private or public audience. There are two benefits to this as a songwriter.
The fulfilment of completing a new song.
Knowing that you are ready to record a full take of your song and that you feel is ready to present to an audience is a very important artistic stage to achieve as it shows you have either completed your song, or are near to finishing. It is important to be able to not just play your song through but to also truly perform it with feel and style. Getting the performance across is all about your connection to your song.Feedback and constructive criticism.
Either you opt to privately or publicly share you song is up to you but what songwriters need to get is a reaction from an audience may it be from a small community of trusted friends or a larger group of like minded creatives.
Cost: FREE