4+ Great iOs/iPhone Apps for Practicing Music!

Here’s my 4 favorite practice apps on iPhone – I’ve been using these daily (if not more). Not all are available for Android unfortunately!

• insTuner – staying in tune!
• ProMetronome – working on time, finding tempos
• iTabla – great for practicing intonation and time for violin & viola
• Voice Memos – great for making simple backing tracks

Besides these 4, which I use daily, I’ve use some other apps on a less regular basis.

While there are some other apps that probably work better than Voice Memos, like GarageBand – these are what I use (and therefore can recommend):

Questions/Ideas/Comments?

If you have any questions, comments, suggestions, please leave a comment below and/or send me a message!

My Favorite Practice Apps

These 5 apps I currently use fairly frequently. In (approximate) order of frequency of use (and time spent using them):

1. ProMetronome
2. Voice Memos
3. iTabla
4. insTuner
5. The Clave

More practice apps that are great, but I don’t use that often (currently):

• ReadRhythm
• Dr. Compas
• iRealPro
• Vanido

My Favorite Apps for Gigging

• insTuner
• iRealPro
• iTabla

My Favorite General Apps that Are Great for Musicians

I never got around to using streaming (other than YouTube). If I like a song a lot, I’ll try to buy it, though I haven’t bought many songs recently b/c I’ve been using YouTube mostly.

• YouTube
• iTunes/Amazon Music

Pro Metronome

I generally use ProMetronome for my almost daily Chill Flamenco Guitar Warmup (Right/Strum Hand). I do this almost everyday – it’s really helped my keep my hands in good condition – plus stay fairly fluent in the fundamentals of right-hand flamenco guitar technique.

I’ll also use ProMetronome when practicing drums and piano – and when making most of my backing tracks – Make your Own Backing Track (5 Minute Practice Ideas).

In the past, I have use the setlist feature when I had to start certain songs at very specific tempos (something I wasn’t able to do on my own in a higher-stakes, more-stressful environment).

And, I use the rhythm trainer feature fairly often, as well. You basically turn on the rhythm trainer and the click with become muted for certain bars. When the click comes back in, you can see how well you are keeping a steady beat.

iTabla

One of the greatest (relatively unknown) music apps that I’ve come across.

I mention also because I don’t think many people know about – but pretty much every musician I’ve shown it to thinks it’s awesome.

• iTabla sounds good and is relaxing
  • so when I practice something that can be a little more stressful like scales and intonation, this helps me relax while practicing scales
  • This also helps me relax when I’m practicing bowing, too. Since most beginners (myself included) bow too tensely, this helps to improve bowing technique
• iTabla is great to help practice intonation
  • For me, (less than a year of learning violin & viola) this has helped me improve intonation – in a fun way. It’s not going to get you all the way there because to really hone in on some of the notes (imho) you probably need to not to have any background noise.
  • But it makes practicing intonation and scales a lot more fun
• iTabla has a great sounding tabla
  • so it’s a fun way to practice with a beat that sounds (imho) “better” than a metronome.
  • Like improving intonation, a metronome will probably have a clearer “beat-center”, but in general, this is a great way to practice with a beat that sounds good!

One of the other great ways to use iTablaPro (if you’re not practicing Indian Classical music) – to practice different time signatures in a very fun way!

insTuner

My go-to tuning app when practicing.

It works great for tuning in quiet environments.

For live situations, I use the tuner on my guitar, or a guitar tuner pedal. I tend to not use phone tuner apps because they usually get confused by background noise.

But it’s always good to have back up great – and InsTuner is a great backup tuner app.

It also allows you to set/calibrate the tuning note – I generally use 440, 432 and Baroque (A=418). I am going to try the Classical (A=422) tuning (I think Classical is what they tuned to in the 1800s?), too.

And it has different Temperaments – something I don’t use but am interested in trying sometime soon!

Voice Memos

The first time I saw someone practice with a voice memos was before it was a well-know phone app.

My friend used to carry around a like voice memo recorder and would record herself singing different songs (and lyrics she made up). At the time I thought it was kind of silly, but after letting the idea ferment in my brain for awhile I realized it was a creative genius idea.

Now I use the voice memo feature daily, if not multiple times a day.

It’s a great, quick way to record yourself. You can use it a memory, to remember something from a lesson, to hear the play back. And my favorite – to create a backing track. I even made a lessons with a video about this – Make your Own Backing Track (5 Minute Practice Ideas).

Yes, there are better apps (like GarageBand). And sometimes I’ll use a real DAW (like Logic) with a good microphone (currently the Q2n by Zoom – it’s a stand alone recorded, stereo mics and also USB).

But using the built-in Voice Memos apps is a simple, easy, (once you have the phone) economical choice!

The Clave

While I use this app less frequently, it’s my go to app for practicing anything (on my iPhone) with clave. Logic & GarageBand both have drummers/percussionists that have clave patterns.

But this app is simple, cheap, dependable, easy and fun to use!

I recommend it to anyone interested in clave-driven music!

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• Playing Tumbao and Montunos Together, Fingerstyle Salsa Guitar Studies/Lessons

Practice Makes Progress!

Best wishes to everyone!

Hope these ideas help! I don’t know offhand the best apps for Android, but I am sure there are plenty. I use an iPhone, so this what I know!