App Reviews: ABRSM strings apps
Helena Ruinard
Saturday, October 1, 2022
Helena Ruinard takes a look at three apps from ABRSM, including a 'practice partner', a 'sight-reading trainer' and a 'scales trainer'.
ABRSM
Violin Practice Partner/Cello Practice Partner
Cost: Free to download In-app purchases necessary
Practice Partner does just what it promises, making practice ‘more musical, enjoyable and fun’, in the simplest way. You can choose whether to play along with the violin and piano or to isolate one part or the other. Because the ABRSM's ‘Speedshifter’ technology is built into this app, it is very simple to use. You don't have to wait for children to get access to MP3s and Speedshifter on their parent's desktop because everything is ready in one app on a mobile platform.
If you click on the stylish cartoon violinist or cellist, they will become greyed-out to indicate you have selected the piano only, and you can click on the cartoon pianist to do the reverse. These limited options and clear, engaging graphics mean the controls are easy to work out – although be careful not to miss the looping feature on the playback bar.
The three main List A, List B and List C pieces for Grade 1 through to Grade 8 are covered, however it is worth warning students that you cannot import standalone MP3s of the exam pieces. Because of the software used, each track must be purchased in-app at £1.79 per track or £7.99 per album for each grade. The quality of the performances is superb, notwithstanding some finesse lost in putting them through the software, so it would be worth amplifying them on a Bluetooth speaker or similar to play along fully.
Violin Sight-Reading Trainer
Cost: £4.99
Catering for Grades 1–5, the Sight-Reading Trainer is made up of interactive quizzes designed to prepare a piece of sight-reading. Once you have done the three games associated with one example of sight-reading, the next set is ‘unlocked’ as if you are progressing to the next level of a video game. There is ‘Rhythm Match’, which is the only game with audio as well as written music; ‘Pitch Patterns’, which requires good knowledge of note names; and ‘What's the difference?’, which tests an awareness of other musical features. All are set with a countdown timer and test the student's ability to absorb musical information quickly and recall it.
You don't have to answer all the questions correctly to ‘unlock’ the piece of sight-reading and progress to the next level – you simply have to attempt them and are either encouraged to do better or praised for doing well. There is no clever technology to assess how ‘correctly’ the sight-reading is played either – it is left to the student to decide whether they are satisfied before moving on.
Violin Scales Trainer
Cost: £4.99
Out of the three apps covered here, this one has the widest array of simple and interactive features. Catering for Grades 1–5, it is arranged in three sections to cover day-to-day practice, testing, and recording how much each scale has been covered.
The ‘Practice’ section has most features, and these are revealed when you select any given scale. You are presented with the notes and fingering, example recordings of separate and slurred versions, plus a lively backing track, a metronome and, again, Speedshifter technology to help you alter the tempo of the backing track. The metronome is a simple slider that can easily be returned to ‘exam tempo’ and, crucially, it stays on when you use the app to record your efforts.
No expense has been spared in getting good studio musicians to record a varied selection of jazz grooves to underpin the scales. To get the most out of them – in terms of not just being kept in time and roughly in key but being able to hear the harmony around each note you play – simple in-ear headphones are recommended. Be prepared for a long four-bar introduction each time and get ready to play both separate and slurred bowing patterns.
Summary
All three of these apps have been carefully designed to develop different skills for each activity in an engaging way. Other apps may try to help students assess their pitch or rhythm through the use of sophisticated software but the simpler approach here both encourages independent learning and indicates a high quality overall. The one caveat is that they are no substitute for good teaching, which barely needs mentioning, although it's nice to be reminded.
