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Intonation is crucial! and with drone tones on all keys, intonation practice would be very accessible. And for the instruments that intonation is not a concern, setting a drone tone would offer the environment to practice harmonies.
Hi, can you elaborate on this a bit more as I'm not familiar with this concept from my own music practice. 1. Would this have to be integrated with the metronome user interface? It seems probably it is a separate type of practice, so it could be a different screen inside the app altogether, e.g. a "Drone tone" section inside Home next to Learn/Tuner? 2. Maybe you can describe in as much detail as possible what the perfect interface would look like? 3. Do you know any apps/interfaces that do a good job allowing to practice with drone tones that we should check out?
Hi Florian, Thanks for getting in touch and being commited to further develope your product. Orchestra musicians give a huge amount of importance to practicing intonation. I am (mainly) an orchestral musician myself, working a lot with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and most of my colleagues are frustrated and still looking for the perfect drone tones app. There are some app decicated to only generating drones and others that do both drones and motronomes (also called motrodrones!) and in my opinion having both is great as some practicing applications (practices not apps) require both. For developing a strong sense of intonation, drones are used as pedals to tune scales, intervals and passages on repertoire and orchestral excerpts. They are also used for ear training that every musician appreciates. Additionally, they can be used to create harmonic environments that provide the space to explore simple or complex harmonies (for improvisers and jazz musicians, OR even used as a tool of expression during a performance. Last but not least, they are used for tuning ones instrument by ear and developing that skill which is handly (and mandatory) when tuning at the beginning of an enseble session without relaying on a tuner. So, as you can see there are countless applications (uses) for a huge and diverse group of musicians. Your metronome app is stellar because of its interface and intuitive applications, but getting to develop that feature in it, you will enter a new market that the rest of the contesters' products already lack the qualities of your metronome. I will not get into metioning other app as I am sure that you can find many, but I couls share a couple of features that ones may anticipate to see in a good app. 1. Good quality of sound. Playing an (sometimes very expensive) instrument againg a cheap sounding MIDI can be really underwhelming. 2. Flexibily in register (octaves). I play the double bass and practicing a bass instrument on a pedal note that is in higher regester than your instrument is not extremely beneficial. 3. Polyphony. Stacking (at least) two tones is great for harmonies OR practicing whole repertoire pieces that sometimes the tonic is not helpful. 4. Get the drones and the motronoe working together. I tried to be as concise as possible, but you can always contact me if you would like to have a chat on these. Best, Evangelos
Hi Evangelos, thank you very much for your extensive response. No worries on concise - this is perfect to introduce us to the requirements of this feature. Ultimately I want the Soundbrenner app to be a super app for every musician, that offers different compartments of features with a simple interface, but that each can also work together. Currently we have the metronome, which we are still perfecting, and the tuner & practice tracker in the earlier stage. I can definitely imagine to launch the drone tones feature at some point in the future. Unfortunately it can't be the immediate top priority but let's see how many other people upvote your suggestion. Once we start designing I will definitely reach out to hear your feedback if you're willing to share it! Cheers,
Thanks Florian for your prompt reply. Being an entrepreneur myself, I do understand how ideas may take certain time to be implemented, but if/when you start working on this, reach out and I will be very happy to help. Till then, all the best.