October 2019
You can sing a solo or join a virtual choir. There are various apps designed for people who love to sing, and not just in the shower. Here are the best tools to warm up your voice, learn how to read music or produce the perfect trill sound. You can practice and study anywhere you like.
The virtual Vocal Coach
The first step when you pick up a guitar is to check that each chord is at the right tension. A digital tuner is therefore useful regardless of your confidence with the instrument: even if you have an excellent ear for music, it’s useful to get feedback so there are electronic devices that can be physically attached to your guitar. However, now you can also just download an app on your smartphone to always have a helper with you. One of the most famous apps is Fender Tune, a free tuner for Android and iOS created by the American guitar maker of the same name, Fender. A metronome is another essential tool for all musicians: Pro Metronome helps mark out musical beats and is available for free from Google Play Store and the App Store.
Keep in time with Metronomerous
Once you’ve perfected your intonation, see if you can sing in time. Song time is measured in beats per minute and with Metronomerous you can sing a melody at different speeds, setting your preferred tempo by simply pressing the screen. Available for iOS and Android, in addition to the most common metronome functions, the app offers customisable graphical displays, vibration with varying degrees of intensity on selected beats and even lets you change the timing of the track playing, increasing or decreasing the tempo. Metronomerous also lets you programme arrangements and share chords with other devices.
Warm Me Up, to warm up your voice
On Tabs & Chords you can consult an archive of musical scores for the guitar (but also for the bass or ukulele) that’s constantly updated with the biggest hits, so it’s excellent if you want to learn to play your favourite new song that you heard on the radio. With its integrated metronome and tuner, the app is an excellent starting point on its own for anyone interested in playing: you can also search by song difficulty, avoiding that frustrating moment when you’re faced with an overly complicated score. And if a song is not there? You can always add it yourself and collaborate with the archive. Tabs & Chords can be downloaded for iOS for €3,49, and for Android for €2,50.
Customised exercises on Vanido
Daily customised exercises to improve your intonation and ability to recognise notes. This is what Vanido offers, the app which works like a “personal singing coach”: Vanido offers the user a series of three exercises every day divided into four categories, ranging from agility in changing tempo to the perfect breathing for singing. The app analyses each note sung, providing instant feedback and showing the results in a graph; it then grades and ranks the performance, letting you compare yourself with other users. The range of exercises is constantly updated with tests that are just like fun games.