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Useful companions: classic apps | NDR.de – Culture – Music

Status: 04/24/2021 3:53 p.m.

Around 50,000 music-related apps are already on the market. For many classically trained musicians, they have become useful companions.


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by Ulrike Henningsen

Oliver Wille, violinist with the renowned Kuss Quartet, remembers exactly when he first started using music apps professionally: “That was when we suddenly had all our smartphones and someone in the quartet found out that it was there was a tuner app, Metronome. It was then played around incredibly. ” Apps for Wille are now part of everyday working life – not only those specially developed for musicians – but also applications that are part of the basic equipment of every smartphone.

Digital sheet music versus paper editions

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Boy is watching a music video on the iPad.  © NDR / Friederike Göckeler Photo: Friederike Göckeler

Digital sheet music, tuner apps, cantatas app, choir app – what can they do, who uses them and what are the limits? more




“Musicians often have to learn over the years to reduce the discrepancy between: How do I really sound and how do I think I sound?” explains will. “A recording app or the voice app is worth its weight in gold!”

Nowadays, a small recording studio fits into the phone and a whole collection of scores fits onto the iPad. Wille also always has “the whole library with him” and on stage he never has lighting problems when looking at the notes or the pedal. If you play from the tablet, you can scroll with a pedal. Just one of the many advantages over the bound paper editions.

Voice apps and tuner apps helpful

Digital sheet music is still more on the desks in the field of chamber music, but the publishing industry is in a state of upheaval. It is not enough just to present the text like an e-book. The scores must also be editable. Wille, for example, writes with his finger. This makes him “faster than someone who needs a pencil and I can write my notes in different colors.”

Pencil, highlighter, eraser can stay at home. And a lot more is possible on the digital playground. For example, there is also the option of displaying the fingerings of famous violinists for a sonata or a violin concerto: “You click on it and then you have the Oistrach fingerings, the Frank Peter Zimmermann fingerings, those by Christian Tetzlaff, etc. and can orientate yourself towards it, “explains Wille.

Fingerings by famous violinists

Some publishers offer scores that are combined with audio programs. So you can record yourself during the game and also send the recording as a file. Or sing at home with a professional choir and learn your own voice with a digital coach.

There is also a lot going on in terms of apps in the field of musicology. For example, there is a cantatas app that bundles the collective knowledge of Bach research. A whole library fits into your pocket on your smartphone. In all of these applications, the question always resonates: What happens when artificial intelligence interferes with making music?

This topic in the program:

NDR culture | Classic in the day | 04/23/2021 | 06:40 am


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