Staying in tune, and keeping the beat

A handout of the Pro Metronome app. INYT

Smartphones and tablets are powerful music devices. You can listen to music, you can create music and, with the right app, you can get an assist when playing an instrument.

One of the most useful apps for guitarists is a tuner app. It makes sense: There is no need to carry another device when a smartphone is already in your pocket. For simple guitar-tuning powers, one of my favourite apps is TuneWave, $1 (Rs 61) on iOS.

The app’s screen is simple, with three main parts: A needle dial like an old voltage meter, a large display of the musical note being played and a wavelike display. To use TuneWave you simply place it near your guitar, pluck a string, adjust the tuning and watch the displays to see when you’ve tuned the string to perfection. The less wavy the display, the closer you are to the chosen note.

On Android, I like Tuner-gStrings Free, a free app that almost exactly the same way as TuneWave.

For a more full-featured guitar tuning app check out Guitar Tuna, a free iOS and Android app. Tuning your guitar involves watching a graph on the screen as you pluck a string - when the graph’s trace is at the centre, your tuning is accurate.

Guitar Tuna also includes a guitar chord section. This shows you how to place your fingers on the strings to play a chord, and it can sound out the chord you’ve selected.
It also has a simple metronome section that can sound out beats to keep your playing exactly on time.

If you’re looking for a straightforward metronome app, then Pro Metronome, free on iOS, is a great choice. The app does precisely what you’d expect: It displays a visual cue and a simultaneous sound at the beats-per-minute rate you select. Its menu system is simple and overall, the app feels very professional.

On Android, a great equivalent app is Metronome Beats. This free app has many similar features, including the ability to choose custom sounds to keep you on the beat.

Lugging around sheet music is much easier now, too: No more carrying paper, and some apps even do clever tricks like turning the pages. On Android my favourite app of this type is Orpheus Sheet Music Reader. This app, which costs $4.57 (Rs 280), is very capable: It not only stores PDF sheet music, but also syncs with Dropbox so you can easily add music to your library.

On iPads or iPhones, the DeepDish GigBook app, which costs $10 (Rs 610), takes this idea one step further. As well as displaying sheet music for you to play, it also lets you scribble on the screen to annotate the score with information like fingerings.