Helpful Teaching Tools and Apps – International Voice Teachers of Mix

Weekly Teaching Tip – Dec. 15, 2014

For those that don’t play the piano well and can’t just determine what key a particular song is in and then play it back for our students, this site is amazing. You can upload any song that you have on file and it will automatically transcribe the chords from the audio source and display them to you. Any song, any time. You can also impute a Youtube or Soundcloud URL and it will generate a chord chart from there as well. By clicking on the diagrams button, it shows you what the chords look like either in guitar, ukulele or piano format. By clicking on the download button, you can get the chords as a PDF to print or a MIDI file to listen to for a small fee. It stores all the songs that you have uploaded in your own library if you create a free account.

#2 – Amazing Slow Downer – www.amazing-slow-downer.com

Stupid name, great product. This program will slow down or speed up a song, and change the key up or down into any key. And it does it without distorting the sound or making it sound wobbly. It’s pretty amazing. I have been looking for years for a program like this that worked this well. Often we need to change keys of songs so that our students can rehearse different ranges in their voice, and even to put the song in a better key for them to perform. This does the trick. Plus it speeds up or slows down really well too. You can download a free product to try it out. In order to do a full song you have to buy the product for $49.95. I thought it was well worth it.

#3 – Instrumental Accompaniment Tracks and Sheet Music

Karaoke Version (accompaniment tracks) – Good tracks, and you can download them in slightly different keys. The tracks are only $1.99 each as well. www.karaoke-version.com/

www.londonarrangements.com (Tracks and Sheet Music) This site is more expensive, but can do the songs in any key. You can also print out the sheet music in most any key.

www.musicnotes,com (Sheet Music) Has a great selection of sheet music. Is around $5 per song and you can print out most songs in several keys.

#4 Voice Analyzer Apps

Audio Analyzer – https://itunes.apple.com/br/app/audio-analyzer/id681184981?mt=8 – A real-time spectrum, spectrogram, oscilloscope and octave RTA analyzer. It gives you a visual representation of an acoustic signal.

Spectrum Analyzer – https://itunes.apple.com/br/app/spectrum-analyzer/id490078884?mt=8 – Lets you see the harmonics of what’s being sung

Sounds (IPA) – https://itunes.apple.com/br/app/sounds-the-pronunciation-app/id442713833?mt=8 – pronounces all of the IPA sounds to help you learn them.

Voice Recorder Pro – great app for recording lessons, ideas and instantly share via Dropbox, clouds or Google Drive) – https://itunes.apple.com/br/app/voice-record-pro/id546983235?mt=8

Ear Training. It reproduces fundamental frequencies (without harmonics) and then reproduces another one. The listener chooses if the following tone is lower or higher than the first. The advantage in this app is that the frequencies are not necessarily notes, and they get even closer when you advance through the “game”. Sometimes the frequencies are only 1,5% different from another. https://itunes.apple.com/br/app/intune-improve-test-your-intonation/id580791793?mt=8

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