Welcome to another Harp Tips Tuesday Newsletter - weekly tricks and tips to help you become a better harpist!
I always get asked for advice about tools to aid my harping and learning, so today I'm going to talk about some of my favourite apps that I use pretty much daily, both for myself and students. They have saved me a lot of carting around extra equipment, and have helped improve musicianship for many of my harp students!
SCORE/PDF READING/MUSIC SCANNING
forScore – my go-to music-reading app. forscore allows you to store and view sheet music in PDF format. You can annotate and save changes, re-order pages, print wirelessly and page turns are easy. This has definitely revolutionised the massive pile of sheetmusic I was lugging around! I use it with a bluetooth pedal to turn pages and then both my hands are free for my harp!
METRONOME
Soundbrenner – this is a free metronome app that I use all the time in my practice sessions.
TUNER
Tuner Lite is an app I always have on my phone so that I always have access to a tuner! It's very accurate, plus picks up the full range of the harp very well!
RHYTHM, PULSE & METER
Rhythm Lab – this is my new favourite rhythm tapping practice app. It has heaps of built-in rhythm patterns in all sorts of meters and students can tap right on the screen and get instant feedback.
SIGHTREADING
MusicFlashClass – This is a great note-learning app - download to your phone and practice a bit of note recognition everyday!
Read ahead - This is really for piano but works well on harp too! One of the hardest things about teaching sight reading is getting students to read ahead and not stop. To do that, they need to practise memorising a bar of music ahead of time. They also need to drill lots of patterns that come up in musical scores. This app practises all that and more. Definitely worth exploring – you can try demo levels for free and then buy upgrades as you need them.
AURAL TRAINING
Ear Master – one of my new favourite apps available for ear training and musicianship. This test you on things like rhythm, intervals, pitch, progressions, etc. It really is an all-round musicianship app that every harp student should have.
I hope these might come in handy for you! Share with others and spread the word!
My Harp Chat Facebook Group is a good place to go for advice and encouragement from other harpists, and if you need sheet music, video lessons or anything else, find it on my website.
