Auld Lang Syne: Mastering Songs on the Piano and Keyboard

Click on any of the music scores to view/print higher resolution versions

This guide will show you how to play simple arrangements of “Auld Lang Syne“.

Auld Lang Syne: Introduction

Here, Auld Lang Syne is written and played in the key of D Major, and has a 4/4 time signature.

Auld Lang Syne: Main Melody

Here are the melody notes you need to play:

A | D D D F# | E D E F# E | D D F# A | B B |
A F# F# D | E D E F# E | D B B A | D B |
A F# F# D | E D E B | A F# F# A | B B |
A F# F# D | E D E F# E | D B B A | D |

Here’s the complete melody written out:

(Download this as a PDF file)

Feel free to alter the timing of the notes to make the music “flow” better. Remember, musical notation is not an exact science and there’s room for your own interpretation of the music.

Here’s what it sounds like:

Listen

Auld Lang Syne: Single Note Bass Line

Below is a simple bass line for the song using just one note at a time. Most of the time you simply play one whole note (semibreve) per bar, with the exception of the final bar which contains a dotted half note (minim).

Here’s the printed music:

(Download this as a PDF file)

And here’s what it sounds like:

Listen

Auld Lang Syne: Walking Bassline – Arpeggios

To inject a bit of movement into the piece, here’s a walking bass line comprised of quarter notes (crotchets) played as arpeggios (broken chords).

After the bass note in the bass clef of each bar, you play the next three notes in the major chord arpeggio – that is, the major third, perfect fifth and octave intervals.

In fact there are only three different arpeggios used — a D major (as per bar 2), an A major (bar 3) and G major (bar 5).

Though these should be fairly easy to play, do watch the big jumps between the top note at the end of one bar and the lower note at the start of the next bar. This is particularly noticeable in bars such as 3 and 4, jumping down from a high A to a low D.

It’s important to keep these notes steady, so the four notes maintain a regular rhythm. It may take a bit of practice when played against the first two melody notes in many bars (2, 3, 4 and so on). Listen to the music to hear how these should be played.

Here’s the printed music:

(Download this as a PDF file)

And here’s what it sounds like:

Listen

Auld Lang Syne: Walking Bassline with Right Hand Chords

In the final version of Auld Lang Syne, I’ve added three-note chords to the right hand to give fullness and a richer harmony.

Generally there’s a chord to play on the first and third beats of each bar. Try to hold the lower notes of the chord while you play the melody over the top. Using the sustain pedal will really help smooth the sound out.

The exception is in bars like 5 and 9, where you have a dotted half note (minim) followed by a quarter note (crotchet).

Here’s the printed music:

(Download this as a PDF file)

And here’s what it sounds like:

Listen

We hope you found this guide useful. Feel free to leave comments below if you have any questions or suggestions.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer: Mastering Christmas Songs on the Piano and Keyboard

Click on any of the music scores to view/print higher resolution versions

This guide will show you how to play simple arrangements of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”.

Introduction

Here, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is written and played in the key of C Major, and has a 4/4 time signature.

Main Melody

Here are the melody notes you need to play:

G A G E C | A G | G A G A G C | B | F G F D B | A G | G A G A G A | E |
G A G E C | A G | G A G A G C | B | F G F D B | A G | G A G A G D | C |
A A C A | G E G | F A G F | E | D E G A | B B B | C C B A | G F D |
G A G E C | A G | G A G A G C | B | F G F D B | A G | G A G A G D | C

Here’s the complete melody written out:

(Download this as a PDF file)

Feel free to alter the timing of the notes to make the music “flow” better. Remember, musical notation is not an exact science and there’s room for your own interpretation of the music.

Here’s what it sounds like:

Listen

Single Note Bass Line

Below is a simple bass line for the song using just one note at a time. Most of the time you simply play one whole note (semibreve) per bar, with the exception of bar 11 which contains two half notes (minims).

Here’s the printed music:

(Download this as a PDF file)

And here’s what it sounds like:

Listen

Walking Bassline – Octaves

To inject a bit of movement into the piece, here’s a walking bass line comprised of quarter notes (crotchets).

Generally in each bar you play a bass note followed by a note one octave above, then repeat.

Bar 19 has two different sets of octave intervals. The first starts on D and the second on G.

In the final bar hold the third note (C) for two beats.

Here’s the printed music:

(Download this as a PDF file)

And here’s what it sounds like:

Listen

Walking Bassline with Right Hand Chords

In the final version of Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer, I’ve added three-note chords to the right hand to give fullness and a richer harmony.

Generally there’s a chord to play on the first beat of each bar. Try to hold the lower notes of the chord while you play the melody over the top. Using the sustain pedal will really help smooth the sound out.

Watch out for bar 19 which contains two half note chords.

You’ll notice that the bass line has changed slightly in bar 16 to add a bit of interest. However, the song doesn’t sound bad if you play the original version of that bar (a repeat of bar 15).

Here’s the printed music:

(Download this as a PDF file)

And here’s what it sounds like:

Listen

We hope you found this guide useful. Feel free to leave comments below if you have any questions or suggestions.

White Christmas: Mastering Christmas Songs on the Piano and Keyboard

Click on any of the music scores to view/print higher resolution versions

This guide will show you how to play simple arrangements of “White Christmas“.

White Christmas: Introduction

Here, White Christmas is written and played in the key of C Major, and has a 4/4 time signature.

White Christmas: Main Melody

Here are the melody notes you need to play:

E | F E D# E | F | F# G | A B C D | C B A G |
C D | E E | E A G | C C | C G F | E | F E D C | D | (D) | E |
F E D# E | F | F# G | A B C D | C B A G | (G) | (G) C D | E E |
E A G | C | (C) C D | E E | A B B B | C | (C)

Here’s the complete melody written out:

(Download this as a PDF file)

The musical notation is written to allow for a slight ‘push’ ahead of the beat in bars 5/6, 6/7 and again in bars 21/22 and 22/23. You may wish to alter the timing when you play. Listen to the recording below, which is taken directly from this notation, and see what you prefer. You are totally at liberty to add your own artistic interpretation.

Here’s what it sounds like:

Listen

White Christmas: Single Note Bass Line

Below is a simple bass line for the song using just one note at a time. Most of the time you simply play one whole note (semibreve) per bar, with the exception of bar 29 which contains two half notes (minims), and bars 27/28 and 31/32 which have tied whole notes held for eight beats in total.

Here’s the printed music:

(Download this as a PDF file)

And here’s what it sounds like:

Listen

White Christmas: Walking Bassline

To inject a bit of movement into the piece, here’s a walking bass line comprised of quarter notes (crotchets).

In the main, you play a bass note followed by a note a perfect fifth above it, followed by the original bass note an octave higher, followed by the second note again.

So, in bar 1 you play a low C followed by the G above it, followed by the C above that, followed by the G again. In bar 3 you play a low D followed by A, high D then A, and so on.

Bar 12 is an exception. This is a broken F minor chord (F, A flat, C) placed to give a better harmony.

Here’s the printed music:

(Download this as a PDF file)

And here’s what it sounds like:

Listen

White Christmas: Walking Bassline with Right Hand Chords

In the final version of White Christmas, I’ve added three-note chords to the right hand to give fullness and a richer harmony.

Generally there’s a chord to play on the first beat of each bar. Try to hold the lower notes of the chord while you play the melody over the top. Using the sustain pedal will really help smooth the sound out.

Watch out for bars 27 and 28 (first two bars on the last line). In the right hand, the F major chord changes to an F minor chord, but you should only play the A flat while holding on to the F and C (and releasing the A).

Here’s the printed music:

(Download this as a PDF file)

And here’s what it sounds like:

Listen

We hope you found this guide useful. Feel free to leave comments below if you have any questions or suggestions.

Winter Wonderland: Mastering Christmas Songs on the Piano and Keyboard

Click on any of the music scores to view/print higher resolution versions

This guide will show you how to play simple arrangements of “Winter Wonderland”.

Introduction

Here, Winter Wonderland is written and played in the key of C Major, and has a 4/4 time signature.

Main Melody

This well-known Christmas song is made from four distinct phrases, with the first two and last one being very similar to one another, with the third distinct ‘bridge’.

The first eight bars feature the first phrase. The second eight bars feature the same phrase repeated.

The next eight bars are quite different, while the final eight bars replicate the second phrase.

The melody notes you need to play are:

G G | G G G | E G G G | G G G | F G G |
B B B A A | G G G F | E E E E D D D D |

C G G | G G G | E G G G | G G G | F G G |
B B B A A | G G G F | E E E E D D D D | C |

B B G# G# C# C# A A | G# E | B B G# G# C# C# A A |
G# | D D B B E E C C | B G G | B B B B A A A A |

G G G | G G G | E G G G | G G G | F G G |
B B B A A | G G G F | E E E E D D D D | C |

Here’s the complete melody written out:

(Download this as a PDF file)

The musical notation may look a little strange to you if you’re not used to seeing triplets. Although the piece of music is written in 4/4, each beat is broken up into thirds. Another way of thinking of it is that each bar has 12 distinct, regular ‘pulses’ or beats in it (we could probably have written it in a time signature such as 6/8 or 12/8 instead).

In reality, there’s nothing much to worry about here, particularly if you know what the song sounds like. In each beat that’s made up of a triplet, you generally have a note that lasts for two-thirds of the beat followed by a note that lasts the remaining one-third (like the pair of notes in bar one or the last beat of bars 2,3 and 4).

Bars with tied notes such as bars 3, 5 and 6 might look confusing. If it boggles your mind and you want to get it completely right, try playing the song much slower than normal and count 12 beats in every bar.

If you do this, a triplet takes up three beats (with the split of notes as described above); a quarter note (crotchet) also takes three beats on its own; a half note (minim) takes six beats on its own; a dotted half note takes nine beats on its own, and so on.

Look at the beginning of bar 3. You should be able to work out how long that last note in the first triplet tied to the next half note lasts — 7 beats.

Or in bar 5, where the three Gs are tied together for a total of 9 beats.

When all is said and done, remember that the printed manuscript is only there as a guide. As you get used to the piece, you can play it with your own chosen swing and timing nuances (and indeed you should).

Here’s what it sounds like:

Listen

Single Note Bass Line

Below is a simple bass line for the song using just one note at a time. It uses four quarter notes (crotchets) per bar to provide a basic rhythm to the song. Be sure to play these notes steadily and regularly.

Many of the intervals between first and second notes in each bar are an octave, with some perfect fourth and perfect fifths.

Here’s the printed music, split over two pages:

(Download this as a PDF file)

And here’s what it sounds like:

Listen

Adding right hand chords

In the final version of Winter Wonderland, I’ve added two- and three-note chords to the right hand.

Generally there’s a chord to play on the first beat of each bar, except in cases such as bar 8 where two chords (the first on beat 1 and the second on beat 3) make for a better harmony.

Try to hold the lower one or two notes of the chord while you play the melody over the top. Using the sustain pedal will really help smooth the sound out.

Here’s the printed music, split over two pages:

(Download this as a PDF file)

And here’s what it sounds like:

Listen

We hope you found this guide useful. Feel free to leave comments below if you have any questions or suggestions.

Mesmerism: Alexandra Dariescu to premiere work in Merseyside

Next Saturday, 8th October, 7.30pm, Merseyside composer Alexandra Dariescu will premiere her new piano work Mesmerism at the Pacific Road Arts Centre in Birkenhead.

Mesmerism was commissioned from Oxton-born composer, Emily Howard, by the Liverpool Mozart Orchestra (LMO), to celebrate the orchestra’s 60th anniversary year.

Mark Heron, the LMO Musical Director, will conduct the orchestra for the première, in a concert which will also feature well-loved classics performed by the orchestra in its first season in 1951.

The commission was made possible by generous support from the PRS for Music Foundation.

Tickets can be pre-ordered from www.pacificroad.co.uk.

(Via)

Bösendorfer creates Liszt 200th anniversary grand piano

When it’s not creating million dollar piano art, Bösendorfer may be readying limited edition grand pianos to mark important musical anniversaries.

Already creating 27 Mozart Edition pianos, marking 250 years since the birth of the great composer, Bösendorfer is now ready to create unique pianos celebrating Franz Liszt’s 200th birthday year.

Liszt was born on October 22nd, 1811, so they have a few months to perfect the instruments.

Only 25 will be made, finished in black polyester and with gold leaf inlays and a silhouette of Liszt on the music desk. Each piano will be accompanied by a full-size reproduction of a painting entitled “Franz Liszt plays for Emperor Franz Joseph and Empress Elisabeth”.

Existing Bösendorfer piano customers can elect to have their instruments customised.

Via

Ultimate Collection of Synth, Keyboard and Piano Tees

You love your piano or synth, right? But what else can you do to show your appreciation apart from playing it (naturally), taking it on gigs and talking to everyone about the latest pieces of music you’re playing or sounds you’ve created?

Wear a themed T-shirt of course!

We present the ultimate list of piano, keyboard and synth-inspired short-sleeved tops for your pleasure.

We’ve set the bar rather high by calling our list “ultimate”. Call us out on this one — if you’ve seen or designed an amazing (relevant) tee, let us know.

Now go, adorn.

Playable Tees

Who said that tee-shirts had to be merely printed? Here are two designs that can be played. We’re thinking you might get into a spot of trouble if you try to play someone else’s tee, particularly if they’re female, but if you’re wearing this yourself, feel free to prod away at your chest.

Electronic Music Synthesizer Shirt

Synthesizer Battery Operated Keyboard Design

Synth Designs

Red Synthesizer Filter Shirt

Keyboard: Vintage Synthesizer: 3D Model

Vintage Keyboards: 3D Model

If you really have this many synths you may not have any money left to buy this tee-shirt. Unless you’re Rick Wakeman.

The Moog T-Shirt

Robots Are the Future, apparently.

Puppetbox Synthesizer Logo

Some nice knobs going on this three-octave beauty.

Filter Tee Shirt

Frequency, resonance, mod depth. What more could you ask for on your chest?

Moog T-Shirts

Grungy Moog goodness.

Danger Synth Shirt

Perhaps the owner has been circuit bending. I’ve never touched a synth and received a bodily injury, but there could be a first time.

Keyboards != Coasters T-Shirt

’nuff said. If you’ve been there, you know.

Colorful Synthesizer Tee Shirts

It is. Synthesizer.

I Love Distorted Synths

Distortion rules.

Analog Synthesizer Tee

Nice bit of generic synth action and ’80s style futuristic writing on this one.

Schematic of Moog Synthesizer Tee-Shirt

Now you know why nerds keep staring at your chest and smirking.

Modularman Scarab Synthesizer T-Shirt

Weird beastie connected up to a load of synth inputs and outputs. Freaky.

Roland TB-303 Acid Synth Tee-Shirt

303. Unmistakeable.

Korg Originals

Korg MS20

This long-coveted patchable mono-synth has been used by cutting edge and retro artists for decades, and was the first Korg synthesizer to be re-created in software in the Korg Legacy Collection. The shirt features a popular 1970s Korg sticker design featuring one way-cool dude, jamming away on the legendary MS-20.

Korg Trident

The first polyphonic and programmable synthesizer from Korg first turned heads in 1980. Since then, musicians have searched far and wide for their own vintage Trident. With additional string and brass sections, this instrument was three synths in one, hence the Trident name! Taken directly from the original owner’s manual, this design captures all the fun of this VCO, VFO, and LFO-equipped legend.

Korg Mono/Poly

Travel back to 1982 with this old-school Mono/Poly design. This massively fat sounding, four-oscillator lead synth is still coveted by collectors and performers today. The vintage cream colored shirt features the original Mono/Poly logo, dressed up with an “era-appropriate” treatment.

Korg Doncamatic

This style pays tribute to Korg’s very first product—the Doncamatic! First used in a Japanese night club in 1963, the Doncamatic started it all! This artwork is lifted directly from the extremely rare Doncamatic product manual, complete with Japanese text!

Piano Designs

Keyboard vs Piano T-Shirt

I really couldn’t choose.

Embroidered Piano T-Shirt

Cute little neon embroidered grand piano icon.

Piano T-Shirt – No Problem

88 keys – 10 fingers – no problem.

Piano T-Shirt

Grand piano and manuscript music.

Zebra Piano Tee-Shirt

It had to happen. Zebra goes piano.

Piano Text T-Shirt

Simply ‘piano’.

Eat, Sleep, Play Piano Tee

If only there were more hours in the day.

Short Broken Piano Tee

I’m not a fan of smashing up piano keyboards, but this design is kinda cool.

Pianos and Cats

I’m not sure what it is about pianos and cats, but it would be remiss of me not to include a few here.

Game Over Cat on Keyboard Tee-Shirt

Very 8-bit retro video game cat. (Were there ever any video games featuring cats?)

Three Keyboard Cat Moon T-Shirt

Three cats, bathed in moonlight, luxuriating by a piano.

Keyboard Cat Tee

Yes. A keyboard cat.

So there you have it. Perhaps not quite ultimate… yet. Show us your favorites.

How To Play The USA’s National Anthem (The Star-Spangled Banner) on Piano and Keyboard

Feeling patriotic? Have an event where it would be good to play the United States’ National Anthem? Here are some simple piano/keyboard arrangements for The Star-Spangled Banner.

Introduction

The Star-Spangled Banner is written here in B-flat major. This is the key I’ve most often heard it played in. It means you have two flats to contend with. B flat and E flat.

It’s written in 3/4 time. That means there are three quarter notes to each bar. For interest’s sake, the British national anthem (God Save The Queen) is also written in 3/4 time.

Melody Line

Here’s the music score.

Here’s a PDF file you can download.

You can listen to what it sounds like with this MIDI or WAV audio files.

The melody is fairly easy to play. You probably already know how the timing of the notes goes, so the dotted eighth note (quaver) followed by sixteenth note (semiquaver) found in bars 1, 3 and 9 shouldn’t phase you. Similarly, the dotted quarter notes (crotchets) followed by eighth notes (quavers) in 6, 15, 23 and 25.

The first ascending notes (in bar 2) are in fact five successive notes of a B-flat major arpeggio. B-flat, D, F, B-flat and D.

Note the E natural in bars 4 and 17.

You know from the anthem that the first part of the melody repeats. This is marked in the music by way of repeat marks and 1st/2nd time bars.

When you see notation like this, it means that you play everything from the start up until (and including) the bar marked overhead with “1.” The repeat mark (looks like a colon (:) means to go back to the last repeat marks. You can see that’s at the start of bar 2.

Play everything through again, but when you get to the “1st” bar, skip it and jump to the “2nd” time bar. Play that bar and then keep going. This is a form of shorthand and saves printing out repeated passages of music again.

Simple Bass Line

Here, a simple one note bass line has been added.

Here’s the music score.

Here’s a PDF file you can download.

You can listen to what it sounds like with these MIDI or WAV audio files.

Right Hand Chords

If you’re playing to accompany singing, it’s useful not to play the melody line itself but to fill out the accompaniment with chords. These can be played in the right hand, while the left hand plays the bass line.

Here’s the music score.

Here’s a PDF file you can download.

You can listen to what it sounds like with these MIDI or WAV audio files.

I hope that helps you when it comes to playing The Star-Spangled Banner.

35 Piano, Synth and Sound Apps from the Mac App Store

With our 22 iPad Music Creation Apps feature going down rather well, we thought we’d take a look at some of the many applications available in the equivalent Mac App Store.

This list won’t be much use to those of you on Windows or Linux computers, but if you run a Mac in your music set up, you may find some of these useful.

It’s worth noting that we haven’t reviewed or tested any of these. They’re provided to you as a service. Should you find one that really doesn’t cut the mustard, or we’ve missed out a great app, do let us know.

As there are quite a few apps here, we’ve split them into several sections. Select from the list below, or just scroll down to see all the apps. Click on the title of an app to visit its official web page.

Audio | DJ | Drum Sequencing | Humor | Piano | Sequencing | Synthesis | Tuning | Tutorials | Utilities | Visuals

Audio

Amadeus Lite

Use your Mac for any audio-related task, such as live audio recording, creating iPhone ringtones, digitizing tapes and records, converting between a variety of sound formats (including Mp3, Mp4, AIFF, WAVE, FLAC, Ogg Vorbis), remastering your iTunes music library, etc.

Thanks to its outstanding direct-to-disk abilities and waveform caching, edits on arbitrarily large sounds are performed at lightning speed. The handling of large sounds is furthermore facilitated by the extensive support of markers.

While Amadeus Lite features a number of built-in audio effects (equalizer, speed and pitch change, echo, etc), its abilities can be extended arbitrarily by the support of Audio Units.

AudioSpeed

AudioSpeed allows you to alter the playback speed of audio (and video) files, and independently or in addition alter the pitch rate. Ideal for learning tricky passages of music or vocals, as it will adjust the playback speed without altering the pitch, if you don’t adjust the pitch slider. AudioSpeed has a large range of features, allowing you to adjust the playback speed and pitch exactly as you want, and to specify a loop section to repeatedly hear the adjusted audio. Key features include:

• Drag and drop table for adding audio and video files.
• Speed slider for adjusting the playback speed from a range of 2.5 down to 0.35. Also allows you to play audio in reverse from speeds of -0.35 to -2.5
• Pitch slider for adjusting the playback pitch rate.
• Loop buttons for setting the loop start and end points, useful for repeatedly playing a section of audio at a different speed.
• Full audio quality controls.
• Unobtrusive step buttons for incrementally adjusting the audio speed and/or pitch rate.
• Separate level indicator and audio info panels.
• Keyboard shortcuts for adjusting the speed, altering the pitch by semitones, and skipping forward or back.
• High quality interface for ease of use.

Auditri

Auditri is the best audio converter for mac, converts between all popular audio formats preserving metadata and album art intact. Lossless codecs are supported so you can keep your audio files in their highest quality. Import your wma and flac files to iTunes by converting them to mp3 and Apple Lossless, convert your m4a files to mp3 so you can play them in all of your devices and more!

Features:

• Keeps file tags and metadata.
• Album art support for mp3, aac, Apple Lossless and flac.
• Fast multicore encoding.
• High quality audio output, using the best encoders in the industry (Lame, Core Audio).
• Option to auto import to iTunes.
• Option to always save files to a custom directory.
• Growl Notifications.
• Easy to use drag and drop interaction.

Supported Input/Output Formats:

• FLAC
• Apple Lossless
• M4A (aac)
• MP3
• WMA
• OGG Vorbis
• WAV
• AIFF

Auditri does not work with any kind of DRM protected files.

AutoSampler

Capture the sound of your hardware and software synths, and convert them automatically to sampled instruments for your sampler. Just connect your synthesizer, set a few parameter, click Start, and the sound will be automatically sampled and standard EXS24/Kontakt/Structure/Reason NNXT files will be created, with no editing required.

eTuner

For those with instrumental talent, eTuner has also been developed and tested to work automatically with a variety of wind, brass, and string instruments.

eTuner is an interactive chromatic tuning application for Mac OS X. This application uses the quality audio and fine display capabilities of your Mac to determine and display musical pitch information as you play an instrument, hum, or sing a note.

In addition to instrument tuning, eTuner can also be used for scale studies and checking intonation as you play an instrument or sing.

eTuner features:

- Graphical note display.

eTuner displays the name of the note that is closest to pitch being detected as well as the amount of variance between the detected pitch and the displayed note, relative to the next higher or lower pitch. Also displayed is an indication of whether the pitch is High, Low, or OK, in relation to the note name being displayed.

- Simple, easy to read display.

The note display has been designed for easy interpretation when appearing anywhere within the musician’s field of vision. eTuner allows the musician’s focus to remain primarily on the music stand, while reinforcing interpretation of peripheral vision cues.

- Chromatic Tuning with User Selectable Scale Key.

eTuner displays all twelve pitches in an octave. The key settings feature allows the user to select which note names will be displayed when pitches of the selected key are detected. Selecting a minor key will also display note names for the harmonic and melodic ascending and descending scales. Notes that are not in the selected key are displayed as what is customary in the chromatic scale.

- NEW! Support for transposed instruments.

eTuner will display the “written note” for C, B?, E?, and F instruments. Select the transposition from the Instrument menu.

- Calibration settings.

The calibration setting provides the flexibility to adjust from the standard tuning of a’=440Hz.

- Frequency and Octave Display

The frequency and octave number can be optionally displayed with the note name.

- Input Level Meter and Volume

eTuner displays the current input device, channel, sample rate, and sound level. A slider control adjusts the input volume for the device. This allows the user to determine if they are producing a tone loud enough for eTuner to analyze.

- Audio System Preferences

Select input from any built-in microphone, or external audio device connected to your Mac.

Music & Speech Cleaner

All-in-one tool to restore and enhance your audio recordings.

• Reduce noise
• Remove hum
• Reduce clicks and pops
• Enhance Voice
• Enhance Music

Easily remove unwanted noise and enhance your recordings with one button operation. iZotope Music & Speech Cleaner gives you all the tools of a complete pro audio cleanup suite with straight forward options.

Music & Speech Cleaner’s intuitive step-by-step interface guides you through the cleanup process without slowing you down. Based on the same advanced noise reduction technology the experts use, the program provides professional-quality results at a non-expert price. Music & Speech Cleaner works with a range of compatible file types, meaning it works with your favorite software, like Apple iMovie or Adobe Premiere Elements. Cleaned files can also be imported into iTunes to create MP3 or AAC files and then burned to an audio CD.

** Clarify lectures, concerts, podcasts and sermons

Removing the hum and buzz from air conditioners or amps. Save the cleaned audio as new files for increased intelligibility.

** Repair audio from videos recorded on your camcorder, cell phone or camera

Remove unwanted background noise in home movies which results from recording in public areas. Share these movies on YouTube, confident with your professional-sounding audio.

** Restore an LP or cassette collection

Remove clicks, pops, and hiss from vinyl or tape recordings. Use Music & Speech Cleaner to separate the file into multiple tracks and then load them onto your iPod.

Sound Studio

Record, edit, and produce your audio with Sound Studio, an easy-to-use Mac app for recording and editing digital audio on your computer. Digitize tapes and vinyl records, record live performances, create your own mixes with crossfades, tweak the levels and EQ, apply digital effects and save in all major file formats with Sound Studio!

The Mac’s most popular audio program for many years, Sound Studio continues to be regularly updated to add new features and to take advantage of the very latest Apple technologies.

With Sound Studio you can record professional sounding Podcasts and other audio dialog. Spoken word, speeches, presentations, music, and other audio can all be recorded and edited with the same high fidelity. And from the high quality master, you can save in many standard file formats such as AIFF, WAVE, MPEG-4 AAC, Ogg Vorbis, and more.

Tech Specs

• Audio recording and playback on 2 channels and multiple tracks.
• Number of tracks limited only by processor and memory constraints.
• AudioUnit plug-in hosting.
• Uses 32-bit floating point PCM format internally.
• Supported PCM file formats: AIFF, CAF, Sound Designer II, and WAVE.
• Supported compressed formats: AAC, AU, AIFF-C, Apple Lossless, FLAC, Ogg Vorbis.
• Supports MP3 encoding if LAME.framework is installed.
• Tone and noise generators.
• 64-bit Intel / 32-bit Intel app binary.
• (32-bit plug-ins only work when app is in 32-bit mode.)

SoundCloud

The official SoundCloud Desktop app brings the full SoundCloud web experience to your Mac. Perfect for both the casual or professional user, it gives you access to all the sounds shared exclusively with you and allows you to browse, listen to and favorite sounds from the world’s largest community of sound creators. Create custom playlists and saved searches to see the sounds you need in an instant and download others for offline playback. And just like all the official SoundCloud apps it also includes record functionality that lets you easily capture and share any sound privately or publicly to Facebook, Twitter and more.

So whether you’re a serious sound professional who needs something to manage your daily workflow or just a casual creator who prefers the smooth native experience of OS X, SoundCloud Desktop does just the job.

Features:

• Record: capture your sounds right in the app and share to Facebook, Twitter or SoundCloud
• Listen to, favorite and manage your exclusive and incoming tracks in one place.
• Create playlists and recent search queries
• Find and follow users right in in the app to get updates in your incoming Dashboard

Speed-Up

Speed-Up brings the 2.0x playback button from your iPhone to your Mac. Listen to audio podcasts and songs at any speed between 0.25x and 3.0x using iTunes.

The app is NOT compatible with audiobooks purchased from Audible.

SlowMusic

SlowMusic is an application for changing the tempo of a music track in real time without affecting the pitch.

It is particularly useful when learning a new musical instrument.

Voice Analyzer

Voice Analyzer is a real-time spectrum and spectrogram analyzer with the possibility of visualization formants for your Mac.

Visualize your voice!!! Use The Voice Analyzer as your private voice teacher!!! With The Voice Analyzer you can check your harmonics and formants, especially the most important for every singer “The Singer’s Formant”.

See your vibrato !!!

With this program you can also see a lot of surrounding sounds such as singing birds, street noise, mechanical noise, and of course the sound and timbre of any musical instruments.

Features:

• Spectrum analyzer.
• Spectrogram analyzer.
• Spectrum and spectrogram gain.
• Frequencies up to: 5.5kHz, 11kHz, 22kHz.
• Formants visualization
• Adjust the width of the formant analysis.
• Start/stop of the analysis.
• Shows harmonics and formants frequencies on the spectrum (realtime)
• Hamming window (on/off)

We also offer a version for the iPod/iPhone/iPad in the App Store (sold separately)

Voice Candy

Voice Candy is a fun and useful recorder for the Mac. It does for the microphone what Apple’s Photo Booth does for the web cam. Voice Candy makes recording enjoyable by providing eight different effects, such as Vader and Chipmunk, to alter the speaker’s voice. Once you have made the recording, you can use it to set a reminder, send an email, or take it with you on your iPod. You can also extend the capabilities of Voice Candy by writing AppleScripts to integrate with other applications.

Features include:

• 8 different effects to record with that alters your voice
• Set a reminder alarm with your recording
• You can snooze the alarm
• Global shortcut key setting
• Run as a menu app
• Email recording
• Send recording to iTunes
• Extendable through AppleScript

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DJ

Cross-DJ

Based on the acclaimed pro DJ software Mixvibes CROSS® and Mixvibes 10 years DJ software technology, CROSS DJ is the new mixing software now available on Mac App Store at a great discount price!

Whether you are a professional, mobile or beginner DJ, CROSS DJ will satisfy the needs of everyone in a nice and intuitive environment. With the instant iTunes® access, finding the right track and building your DJ playlist has never been so easy!

Get now access to all professional DJ features:

• Perfect mix including the 100% optimal BPM analysis and synchronization technology
• Automix playlist
• High quality effects: Flanger, Reverb, Low-Pass with ultra-knob control
• 2 colored DJ decks plus a preview player
• Intuitive Mac Laptop / Desktop keyboard shortcuts
• 6 precise Cue-points to set and store up
• Smart music and playlist management with artwork browsing
• Instant mix recording in low, mid, high quality format
• more than 35 pre-mapped class industry DJ controllers such as Pioneer, Numark, Hercules, Vestax,…
• Advanced MIDI Learn
• AIFF, WAV, MP3, FLAC, and AAC audio file support
• Compatible with any external audio interface (USB, Firewire…) for high resolution sound quality.

djay

djay seamlessly integrates with your iTunes library and transforms your Mac into a full-blown DJ system. Unprecedented ease-of-use, combined with innovative and powerful mixing features, make this the perfect tool for beginners and seasoned pros alike.

FEATURE HIGHLIGHTS:

• Seamless iTunes integration
• Easy-to-use drag and drop interface
• Automix
• Live Recording
• BPM-sync and automatic tempo and beat detection
• Live Microphone with pitch and echo effect
• Previewing songs through headphones (via USB audio interface)
• Audio Effects: Speed Change, Reverse, Time-Stretching, Pitch-Shifting, Echo, Reverb, Audio Units, and more
• Export history of played songs as iTunes playlist or PDF
• MIDI learn
• Support for external audio interfaces and controllers (MIDI, USB, Firewire)
• Supports all major audio formats like MP3, AAC, WAV, AIFF, Audio-CD and songs purchased from the iTunes Music Store

VirtualDJ Home

Winner of the “Best DJ Software” at WMC 2010, and with more than a million new downloads every months, VirtualDJ is the most widely used DJ software, and the uncontested leader of non-timecode digital DJing.

It has been used around the world for the past 10 years by bedroom DJs and professional superstars alike to rock millions of parties, and has been chosen by leading DJ brands such as Denon, Gemini, Numark, or Vestax, to be included with most of their digital DJ controllers.

With its cutting-edge beatlock engine, your songs will always stay on the beat, and you can work your mixes incredibly faster than any other DJ.

The automatic seamless loop engine and synchronized sampler will let you perform astounding remixes on the fly.

The video engine lets you mix and scratch music videos or karaoke as easily as audio.

With NetSearch and MusicGroups, you will stay on the edge of the musical trends.

And with the versatile VDJScript language and hundreds of downloadable skins, you can tailor your software to your exact needs.

Whether you are a professional experienced DJ, or a music enthusiast, VirtualDJ is all you need to get the party started.

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Drum Sequencing

Renzoku Drums

Renzoku Drums is a new kind of drum application. It is a drum loop sequencer with 9 way pattern switch.

9 pattern presets are all customizable and you can switch them rapidly with keyboard. Switch rhythm patterns as you like. Rhythm pattern will vary smoothly. And you can edit pattern immediately with the pattern editor.

Your performance can be recorded and exported to WAV file.

Renzoku Drums is designed for

1. Daily musical instrument trainings
2. Drums track making
3. Jamming

iDrum

iDrum turns your Mac into a powerful, simple-to-use virtual drum machine. Build patterns with iDrum’s lightning-fast step sequencer, using included kits or your own samples.

Easy. Fun. Dope.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a professional beat-maker or if you’ve never touched a drum machine before. iDrum lets you create drum patterns quickly, either with its top-notch included kits or your own samples. There’s simply no faster way to build a beat on your Mac.

Drum machine newcomers will get to experience the same magical instant-gratification that hooked an entire generation of musicians on the hardware drum machines of yesteryear. Pros will find that iDrum is the perfect way to manage large unwieldy drum sample libraries, get a phat beat going, and get it exported into the format you need (and for less money than a replacement pad for your MPC 3000).

Play that Beat

Don’t feel like pushing buttons with your mouse? Prefer to bang on things instead? iDrum has you covered. Use record mode to tap out beats on an attached MIDI keyboard, or even using your QWERTY keyboard!

Samples Reloaded

iDrum comes with hundreds of professional drum samples arranged in nearly two hundred iDrum files, each with several preset patterns programmed by some of the best beatmeisters working today. But these beats are just the beginning—since you can mix and match parts and samples between kits, and even load your own AIFF and WAV drum samples, the possibilities for beat creation are virtually endless. If you ever run through all the drum sounds that come with iDrum (and it will take you a while, believe us), you can drag any AIFF or WAV file of up to 2MB in size into iDrum’s channel window.

Patterns Galore

Store up to 99 patterns in a single iDrum file, along with all of the drum sounds you used to make your beat. iDrum makes it simple to create tons of variations on a simple pattern, and then chain them together using Song Mode. Or simply trigger patterns from your favorite host sequencer.

Parts

iDrum comes with dozens of part presets—a unique feature that makes it incredibly easy to create amazingly cool beats by simply mixing and matching parts and samples—even if you’ve never programmed a beat before. You can even add your own parts to iDrum’s part preset library so you never, ever, ever have to program that syncopated disco hat figure again (you know the one we mean).

Link to iDrum for the iPhone and iPod touch

Take your beats anywhere! iDrum versions for the iPhone and iPod touch platforms are available now on the Apple App Store . iDrum now lets you share kits and sounds with your iPhone/iPod touch. Create beats in the palm of your hand with your own samples and custom kits!

360 Drum Sequencer

360 Drum Sequencer is a basic MIDI drum sequencer and features a circular layout based on the time signature for note editing and has a simple, logical part/bar song structure.

Visit my website for more information including links to a video walkthrough.

360 Drum Sequencer was designed for musicians who don’t want to use drum loops and don’t enjoy trying to write drum parts using software designed for writing keyboard parts.

360 Drum Sequencer however is NOT a drum sample player or synthesizer, it relies on additional software such as GarageBand, Logic or BFD2 to be heard. Like a MIDI keyboard controller, it sends MIDI note information to a listening application or device.

360 Drum Sequencer also has no loops, grooves, or pre-made material, instead it was designed for musicians who want to create unique songs, note by note, simply and efficiently and in a way that makes sense musically. In other words, no linear time lines, no piano rolls, no crazy interface with a million buttons and multiple modes. Just a basic, easy to use editor built for drums.

Example workflow (assuming you have GarageBand):

1. Launch Garageband and create a new track set to your favorite drum kit.
2. Launch 360 Drum Sequencer. GarageBand will automatically detect the new MIDI source.
3. Define the parts of your song, Intro, Verse, Chorus, etc.
4. Choose an Instrument library (e.g. BFD2 10 Piece, GarageBand, etc.) or create one from scratch.
5. Add notes by clicking on the beat wheel. You can drag notes around the beat wheel to move them
   or drag them off the beat wheel and let them go to delete them.
6. Press Play and 360 will send the MIDI notes to GarageBand which will play them.

Features include:

• MIDI OUT to any device that accepts MIDI IN allowing you to drive most drum/sample audio applications such as GarageBand, Logic, BFD2, etc.
• MIDI file export.
• Song based structure consisting of Parts which have Bars which have Notes. You can duplicate Parts, duplicate Bars, copy notes from one Instrument to another.
• Instrument libraries already setup for GarageBand/Logic and BFD2.
• Velocity randomization which can be targeted to the entire song, a single part or selected bars.
• The Beat Wheel editor which gives you a circular layout to place notes (up to 32nd notes), divided and subdivided based on the time signature for a given part. There is also an inner Beat Wheel for placing triplet notes.
• New Song Wizard for quick setup.
• Instrument library editor for creating your own custom instrument libraries.

8Bit Drummer

Drum machine loaded with classic 8bit drum sounds. Autosave and export your lo-fi creations. Make music, no fuss, no muss.

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Humor

Burp and Fart Piano

With this app you can now fart and burp your favorite tunes without the risk of having to change your pants or throw up.

Imagine the laughs you could get from playing twinkle twinkle little star in farts, or that chinese one (I think its called chop sticks) in burps.

Just click on the piano keys or type the letters on your keyboard.

This app is hours of laughs and highly addictive

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Piano

UVI Electric Piano

Turn your Mac into a soulful Electric Piano !

Simply plug a MIDI keyboard in your computer and you’re ready to play one of the best electric keyboard ever made: a wonderful Rhodes™ electric piano manufactured in 1979.

UVI Instruments are well known and have been deeply used by professional musicians and producers for more than a decade thanks to some unique software like MOTU MachFive™, Ethno™ and BPM™, Spectrasonics Stylus™ and Atmosphere™, UVI Workstation™… to name a few.

UVI Electric Piano features the best of the UVI technology and the most efficient user interface to play an instrument: launch it and play !

UVI Electric Piano features:

• Super easy to use and great sounding instrument
• Featuring a classic Rhodes™ manufactured in 1979
• Recorded in a world class studio with the best gear
• Deeply multi-sampled (sustain, release, pedal noise…)
• Expertly edited and scripted using the latest UVI Engine
• Low Memory usage thanks to lossless realtime decoding
• Custom velocity curves to fit your playing style
• Onboard great sounding FX : Speaker Cabinet, Drive, Tremolo, Autopan, Chorus & Flanger
• Superb integrated old school “Spring” reverb
• Easy to record in Garage Band, Logic and others audio software
• CPU efficient
• Ultra low latency
• Compatible with built-in or third party sound cards.
• Compatible with all USB/MIDI keyboards and controllers

UVI Grand Piano

Turn your Mac into a wonderful Grand Piano!

Simply plug a MIDI keyboard in your computer and you’re ready to play one of the best instrument ever made: a Steinway™ Model D Grand Piano.

UVI Instruments are well known and have been deeply used by professional musicians and producers for more than a decade thanks to some unique software like MOTU MachFive™, Ethno™ and BPM™, Spectrasonics Stylus™ and Atmosphere™, UVI Workstation™… to name a few.

UVI Grand Piano features the best of the UVI technology and the most efficient user interface to play the piano: launch it and play !

UVI Grand Piano features:

• Super easy to use and great sounding instrument
• Steinway™ Grand Piano Model D
• Recorded in a world class studio
• Deeply multi-sampled (sustain, release, pedal noise…)
• Expertly edited and scripted using the latest UVI Engine
• Low Memory usage thanks to lossless realtime decoding : only 400 MB instead 3 GB
• Custom velocity curves to fit your playing style
• Superb integrated convolution reverb
• CPU efficient
• Ultra low latency
• Compatible with built-in and all third party soundcards.
• Compatible with all USB/MIDI keyboards and controllers
• Easy to record in Garage Band, Logic and others audio software

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Sequencing

GarageBand

GarageBand ’11 turns the Mac into a complete recording studio and offers fun new features that help you create even better sounding songs. Use Flex Time to quickly fix timing mistakes and Groove Matching to make multiple instruments play together seamlessly. Or plug in an electric guitar and play through realistic, inspiring new guitar amps and stompbox effects. GarageBand ’11 also has 22 new Learn to Play lessons in the most popular musical genres, and a exciting new feature called “How Did I Play?” that lets you practice along with any lesson while receiving real-time feedback – showing you where you made mistakes and tracking your improvement over time.

Flex Time

• Quickly change the timing of your audio recordings
• Fix occasional timing mistakes or make creative changes to how a part was performed
• Innovative UI – just click and drag the waveform to change the timing

Groove Matching

• Align the timing and rhythm of all your tracks with a single click
• Select a Groove Track, GarageBand analyzes its rhythm and instantly matches all other tracks

More guitar amps and stompbox effects

• Seven new guitar amps for a total of 12
• Modeled after the most revered gear in the world – from clean sounds to heavy distortion
• Five new stompbox effects, for a total of 15
• Mix Amps with stompboxes and find thousands of ways to rock

New Basic Lessons for piano and guitar

• 22 new Basic Lessons for piano and guitar (40 in total)
• Full screen, interactive video lessons with an Apple instructor to guide you
• Synchronized notation with animated onscreen instrument
• Built-in glossary to reference tuning for your guitar, reading music, and more
• Artist Lessons show you how to play a hit song taught by the artist who made it famous
• The GarageBand Lesson Store lets you browse, purchase and download Artist Lessons

“How Did I Play?”

• Play along with any GarageBand Lesson and get feedback on how accurately you’ve played
• Progress bar provides overview of your performance, and you can track progress over time
• Two-page notation to play along with sheet music or review your mistakes
• Chord Trainer to teach you how to play the most common chords, with real-time feedback

n-Track

n-Track Studio is an audio & MIDI multitrack recorder that turns your Mac into a full-fledged recording studio. You can record and playback a virtually unlimited number of audio and MIDI tracks. The program supports simultaneous recording from multiple 16 and 24 bit soundcards, and real-time audio effects can be applied non-destructively to each track. Built-in effects include Multiband Compression, Delay, Graphic EQ, Pitch Shift and time stretch, Parametric EQ and spectrum analyzer with guitar tuner.

The program can use third party AU and VST plug-ins to process in real-time audio signals. Effect can also be used to process the recorded signal in real-time so that the computer can act as a multi-effects device.

MIDI tracks can be imported end exported to regular MIDI files, and edited using the built in piano-roll based MIDI editing window. The program supports AUi and VSTi instruments plug-ins for sample accurate software MIDI playback.

All the audio tracks are saved as standard wave files and mixed “on the fly” during playback.

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Synthesis

Bubble Harp

“Of the millions of apps out there, none quite capitalize on the sheer fun and beauty of interactivity the way that Scott Snibbe’s do.” –CoolHunting

** #1 Music App in Mac App Store Worldwide ** iTunes Top 10 App of the Year for Art and Music on iOS **

Bubble Harp draws bubbles around your mouse’s strokes, recording and replaying your movements while creating music. It’s a combination of drawing, animation, music, art, geometry, and gaming. You can record long movements of a single point, or stream many points out of your cursor like ink. Through the pop-up control panel at the screen’s bottom, you can change from single points to streams of points, change graphic and sonic parameters, and load and save files. Bubble Harp was first released as a work of interactive art by Scott Sona Snibbe that was only available in galleries and museums. Now it’s available as a Mac application that also makes music.

Rated #1 Music App and Apple’s Top Music App in many countries, since its release.

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Tuning

Audio Tuner

Quickly and easily tune just about any musical instrument to perfect pitch.

Audio Tuner provides

• a full spectrum analysis,
• a pitch pipe,
• built-in tunings for many musical instruments.

Simply play your musical instrument into the microphone to find out if it is flat or sharp, then use the tone generator to confirm the note.

Supported instruments include

• guitar
• ukulele
• violin
• piano
• bass guitar
• banjo
• mandolin
• autoharp
• cello

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Tutorials

Ableton Live 101

Ableton Live is an amazing audio production and live performance tool. But all the incredible features that are packed into this software means the learning curve is steep! Don’t let that deter you though … with a bit of training you’ll soon know how to *think* like Live, and that will make it faster and easier for you to create your artistic visions.

In this 6.5-hour Ableton Live 8 tutorial-video by Lead macProVideo.com trainer Bill Burgess, you’ll learn incredible tips, tricks, and workflow techniques that will help you become a master of Live 8.

The tutorial begins with an exploration of the Ableton Live 8 interface and a detailed section on setting up your external studio gear to work seamlessly with Live. Once your gear is connected and talking to Live 8, you’ll move on to explore file management, working with tempo, and other basics of audio production.

Next, the tutorial gets deep into the killer features of Ableton Live 8, including using Warp Markers to alter the tempo and pitch of loops—the foundation of Live’s amazing audio abilities!

You’ll then explore recording audio, working with MIDI and Live 8′s included instruments, using device racks and adding DSP effects to your song, mixing techniques, and finally, some incredible videos on automating Live so your songs evolve over time.

The tutorial ends with a section on creating live sets in Ableton Live 8. You’ll learn how to incorporate the much-hyped APC-40 into your sets, and even explore working with video in your Live shows.

eMedia Piano and Keyboard Method

This new version of eMedia Piano & Keyboard Method offers everything you need to learn how to play! Piano instructor, Irma Irene Justicia, M.A., who has taught at the renowned Juilliard School of Music, guides you through over 300 step-by-step full-screen lessons. New Instant Feedback works with both electronic keyboards and acoustic pianos! It listens as you play melodies and shows whether you’re playing correctly!

The lessons start with the basics, such as hand position, rhythm, and playing on black keys, and move on to reading music notation, sight reading, scales, and much more. Techniques are demonstrated with over 70 videos viewable in full-screen mode.

Learn songs and exercises from music notation as an animated keyboard guides you through fingerings. Songs and exercises are provided as both live-recorded audio and variable-speed MIDI tracks which let you slow the music down as needed. Colorful MIDI accompaniments help make practicing fun! You will learn over 100 popular classical, blues, pop, and rock songs, including hit songs from artists such as Billy Joel, Bob Dylan, and Elton John!

Interactive review and ear training quizzes help reinforce new concepts and develop your ear. When used with an electronic MIDI keyboard, you get Interactive Evaluation Feedback with detailed specifics on your playing, including which notes and rhythms were wrong and how to correct them. In addition, the new Note Tracker shows you what note you’re playing and makes learning music notation easy. This latest version also offers fully scalable lesson screens and an option for full-screen video. Other accessories include a built-in digital metronome and a recorder. eMedia Piano & Keyboard Method is the ultimate way to learn how to play piano or keyboard!

Features:

• Instant Feedback – shows you whether you’re playing the correct notes on melodies. Works with both electronic keyboards and acoustic pianos!
• Interactive Evaluation Feedback – when using a MIDI keyboard you get specific feedback on note and rhythm mistakes to help you get it right the next time.
• Progress Tracking – personalized reports show your rate of progress, including scores for specific songs. The built-in recorder also helps you hear your progress.
• Animated Keyboard – displays correct fingerings as the music plays or for any note or chord that you double-click.
• Audio Tracks – features multi-track live recordings, colorful MIDI accompaniments and MIDI tracks that allow you to slow down or speed up the music.
• Full-screen lessons and videos.

Also features over 100 songs including:

• “Piano Man” by Billy Joel
• “Candle in the Wind” by Elton John
• “Ode to Joy” by Ludwig van Beethoven
• “America the Beautiful” by Samuel Ward
• “La Bamba” made famous by Los Lobos
• “Minuet in G” by J.S. Bach
• “Tishomingo Blues” by Spencer Williams
• “The Entertainer” by Scott Joplin
• “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” by Bob Dylan

Piano Game X

Piano Game X is a musical and memory game! The game plays a note and you have to guess and play it on the piano. If you guess right other notes will be added creating long melodies. Will you remember the whole sequence?

Challenge your friends, train your hear and discover always new tunes!

• Easy and intuitive: It takes just a second to start playing. It’s the perfect substitute of Minefield and Solitaire! And if you are in doubt you can always take a look at the help.
• Multiple game modes: You can freely play the piano, or you can challenge your friends by simple or advanced play modes.
• A never-ending game: Endless levels and melodies. How many notes will you be able to recognize and remember?
• Online Standings: Follow your ranking, beat all the records of other users and show your mnemonic-musical skills! You will challenge also iPod iPhone and iPad users of all the world!
• Train yourself playing:
  • Educate your ear while having fun!
  • Challenge your friends!
  • Improve your memory!
• Arcade design: Play on an high definition arcade keyboard made with attention in every detail, both in front and on the back.

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Utilities

Beat Counter

Provides completely automatic beats-per-minute detection using computational music analysis algorithms. Analyzes your collection of music files and writes the resulting BPM value to the MP3 ID3v2 tag.

• Fast and high precision analysis
• Completely automatic
• Write BPM to MP3 ID3v2 tag

How to use: To enqueue files for analysis, press the big green play button.

Keymap Pro

Create, edit, combine, automap, autoloop, slice, process your sampled instruments/sounds for Logic and Mainstage (EXS24), Kontakt3 and 4, Structure and Reason NNXT.
Keymap Pro is the most advanced application for editing sampled instruments available today.

Keymap integrates with Logic and Mainstage so that you can use it as an additional editor for your EXS24 instruments from within the Logic/Mainstage environment without having to load/save files and refresh menus. With this feature, the combination of Logic and Keymap offers the most sophisticated sampling environment ever.

Main Features

• Sampled Instruments editor for the EXS24, Kontakt3 and 4, Structure and Reason NNXT formats.
• AIFF,WAV, SD2, CAF, Apple Lossless, AAC support
• Autosplit samples and AutoMap with Pitch, Power, Decay, Spectral detection
• The most advanced DSP looping tools, crossfades and playback modes
• Loop the unloopable with Escher, Penrose, Moebius DSP Machines and AutoLoop
• SoundDesign processing with AudioUnit support
• Harmonic resynthesis with control over pitch, formant, time and amplitude and Polyphonation
• New Resynthesis Algorithm for polyphonic/drum samples
• Pitch Correction
• Built-in multichannel Recording and AutoSampling
• AutoMap functions for live recordings offer autosampling for acoustic instruments
• 3D Spatialization using 5 different algorithms including HRTF
• Drag and drop Magic Pads for import and export
• Dynamic velocity remapping
• Quadrasmooth function equalizes the sample levels
• Custom remapper to convert drum maps
• Sample slicing with instant remix feature
• Realtime and non destructive, exports standard sample files
• Direct integration with Logic and Mainstage
• Continuous background sample rendering
• Extensive modulation possibilities for sound design
• AutoSampler Live functions for interactive autosampling
• Support for floating point audio formats
• Export to multiple formats at once and Render in place
• MIDI Assignable editing parameters
• Multichannel support up to 24 channels
• Multiple playback personalities to replicate each format features
• Integrated Sample Editor
• Integrated Browser
• CoreAnimation-based intuitive interface with simplified modes
• 32/64bit Standalone application

Midi2Mp3

MIDI into MP3 Converter for Mac is a perfect choice for amateur or professional artists who involved in MIDI music creation, using digital instruments such as music sequencers, keyboards or pianos. All of them need a professional tool to convert their MIDI (MID, RMI, KAR) compositions to common audio formats. All popular MIDI formats are supported: MIDI, RIFF MIDI and Karaoke MIDI.

Artists can experiment with different SF2 Sound fonts to change the instruments sounds and quality. Try use different sound fonts and find best match for your MIDI composition in few minutes. The program also allows to adjust the MIDI composition tempo.

Smart MIDI to MP3 Converter has a built-in MIDI and Music audio player (with position track bar) – useful to listen to MIDI, MID, RMI, KAR (Karaoke files) before rendering.

Mini Metronome

A handy metronome that uses minimum screen real estate.

Designed for musicians who want to keep a metronome ready all the time.

Features:

• Tiny: hidden inside the system status bar.
• Precise: tick variance less then 0.5 ms on modern machines, internal precision up to 0.2 ms.

OnStage

This nifty little Application take the stress out of your live performance.

With OnStage running seamlessly alongside Apple’s leading studio application, Logic Studio® is transformed into a powerful performance tool.

Onstage enables the user to assign a unique Midi Program Change message to 30 different Logic Pro or Logic Express Projects. This allows the performer to recall each Project, or song in a set-list, via an ‘OnStage’ Midi control message.

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Visuals

MIDITrail

MIDITrail is a MIDI player which provides 3D visualization of MIDI data sets.

You can enjoy not only listening but also viewing.

MIDITrail supports Standard MIDI File (format 0/1), and multiple MIDI ports.

Quick Start

1. Click “Option” -> “MIDI OUT…”, select “Apple DLS Music Device” to Port A.
2. Drop your MIDI file into the window.
3. Push space key to play/pause, and push ESC key to stop.

How to teach young children to play music keyboard using coloured stickers

Our guide on how to label and write notes on the piano keyboard is great for older children and adults who don’t yet wish to learn traditional musical notation, but it may still be too complicated for much younger children.

Introduction

If you are keen to teach your toddler or young child — now happily sitting in front of their new keyboard — some simple tunes, read on.

This guide offers a basic way to label a portion of the keyboard (one octave – that’s eight white notes) and then encourage your child to play simple tunes by recognising and matching colours.

In time, if your child shows interest and progress, you could introduce a more elaborate system in order that he or she can play more advanced melodies.

Equipment

Apart from a keyboard or piano with at least one octave (that comprises of eight white notes in succession, plus five interspersed black notes) you only need one other piece of kit in order to set up: adhesive labels.

In order that you can follow the printed music we’ve prepared, you should ensure that you get a pack of stickers with at least one of the each of the following colours in:

Red
Orange
Yellow
Green
Dark Blue
Aqua Blue
Purple
Pink

In the UK, I find these coloured spine labels
work well, but I can’t find an equivalent link in the US Amazon store. As an alternative, you could buy ordinary white circular labels and colour them in yourself with felt-tipped pens (ensuring that the ink is suitable for the label and won’t come off when the keys are played).

Preparing the Piano or Keyboard

Firstly, you need to find the right section of the keyboard to affix the coloured stickers to.

Below is a diagram of a fairly standard five octave (61 key) keyboard instrument from Yamaha. All keyboards are laid out like this, but your model may have less or more keys.

What you’re looking for is a white note immediately to the left of a set of two black notes. Generally, you need to pick the one closest to the centre of the keyboard — this is likely to be what’s known as “Middle C”.

To help you find it, play all the “C” notes on your keyboard until you find the one that sounds the closest to the following:

Middle C [MIDI file. Most modern PCs should play this automatically when you click on it]

Once you’ve found your note, affix the red sticker either to the key (best) or on the plastic/wood/metal directly above the key.

Then, attach the orange sticker to the white key immediately to its right. Continue with yellow, green, dark blue, aqua blue, purple and pink.

You should now find a run of eight notes have coloured stickers on, and the pink sticker is also on a “C” key. See the diagram below:

Playing Melodies

Now your keyboard is set up, you can select some tunes for your child to practice playing.

We have prepared some very simple songs that only need, at most, this range of eight notes to play. The black keys are not used in this system (there’s plenty of time for that later!)

Now, all your child needs to do is to match the printed colours, working from top to bottom, left to right across the page, with the appropriately coloured key on the keyboard… then play it.

Does your child recognise the tune? Encourage him to keep practicing, and let him know that it’s OK to experiment and make mistakes, too. He’ll no doubt want to play other keys, or use both hands, and that’s absolutely fine. This is as much about encouraging exploration and learning music on his own, if not more, than simply following printed music.

The Music

Pick a link below to see printable PDF files containing some well-known songs.

Please note that, because this is a very simple system, it’s not possible to show detailed timings. Hopefully, because you’ll know the tunes, you can work out how long each individual note should last.

Very basic note lengths can be shown. Imagine each coloured circle is a single ‘beat’, and play each subsequent note at a regular interval. Blank (white) circles on the music indicate that the preceding note should be held for an additional beat.

Feel free to experiment with the timings yourself.

• London Bridge is Falling Down
• Mary Had a Little Lamb
• Three Blind Mice
• Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star

Expanding the System

The simple system only uses the eight white notes, but this does limit the melodies that can be played.

To introduce the black keys into a song, the system can be simply expanded so that the red, orange, green, dark blue and aqua blue can include a “+” sign within the circle on the printed music. If the player sees a + in the circle, this means to play the black key immediately to the right of the corresponding white key.

We’ll include some songs that use this more advanced method very shortly.

DIY

If you can’t find the exact coloured labels here, you’d like to use your own coloured or shaped labels, or you want to create your own melodies, then you can print out a template that will allow you to create your own music.

Once the blank sheet is printed, simply colour or otherwise mark the appropriate circles to show which keys should be played. Just ensure you are consistent with the stickers on the keyboard itself.

• Download sheet music template

What’s Next?

If your child has really taken to playing the keyboard, you might want to buy some piano books for kids so that he or she can explore further.

The most important thing is to always encourage your child to explore and learn at their own pace. Perhaps more formal music lessons would be good, but don’t force them on your child as it is possible to stifle their interest.

Most of all, enjoy the shared experience of music!

Recommended Product: How your child can read music notes – easily and quickly

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