There can be very few people in the world who don’t find some enjoyment from music. The many varied genres around the world appeal to toddlers through to the more senior members of our society. Music knows no boundaries, and Iggy Pop was still stage diving at the age of 60, into an audience that probably contained a few sexagenarians too.
Some people aren’t satisfied with just listening to music though, they want to play, and create music too. The sales of musical instruments, in general, have remained fairly stable over the last decade, with guitars, in particular, selling well during the pandemic.
According to Statista, the musical instrument and supply store industry was worth $5.38 billion in 2021. This includes certain other products such as gadgets and accessories that can improve the overall experience for the musician by adding effects or helping to tune the instrument easier.
Not all musical accessories are sold in physical stores though. There are many other resources and apps available to use online or to download. If you are a budding musician or someone a little further along with their education, then you may be interested in some of the following tools and gadgets you can use today.
Why do musicians need gadgets and apps for their instruments?
Learning a musical instrument can come easy to some, while others find it much more of a struggle to achieve their goals. Therefore, some help can be gratefully received by these students.
Online resources and apps can help a guitarist to learn chords easily. While other gadgets might give the instrument the sound that the more seasoned musician was seeking.
Some accessories will simply make you more popular with the neighbors while letting you practice. For instance, the Boss Waza-Air headphones will let you practice without disturbing the peace. The quality of these headphones will please any musician, although they may not please the wallet.
Some apps are useful for sharing ideas with other musicians, and others help bands to find gigs and work.
Mobile applications for musicians and music lovers
According to the Business of Apps, there were somewhere in the region of 143 billion apps downloaded in 2020. While many, if not the majority, were probably games, many others were apps with often more serious, or creative purposes.
Many of these are aimed at songwriters, guitar players, and individuals who just love to discover new music.
For piano players
There are a number of apps designed to help people learn the piano online. Some of these apps are aimed at helping new musicians learn some easy piano songs by showing how to play existing music from famous musicians.
Others will help musicians by offering structured lessons, or explaining how to read music. Here is one of the best apps for beginner piano players.
Skoove works on all main platforms, i.e. iOS, Android, Mac, or PC. It isn’t free to use apart from a week’s trial, but the features make it outstanding for beginners. One of the smart features it contains is the ability to listen to the player and then react and give feedback.
For the musicians who don’t have a drummer
Elastic Drums is an affordable drum machine app that can help any musician in need of a drummer. Six channels of drums for creating patterns for your soon-to-be number 1 hits.
Music apps for learning chords
Anyone learning the guitar, the piano, or the ukulele, might find a chord learning app invaluable. Especially when they are first starting out.
The web and mobile app from Chordify makes learning chords simple and uses a creative way to do so. This app takes existing songs from any artist you care to mention and then strips the chords from it so that they can be read and played by the user.
For finding new music and sharing ideas
These apps are for both the musician and the music lover. While you may enjoy playing the air guitar at home, you might really just want to listen to the latest beats rather than actually play them. In that case, you will appreciate the many reasons for upgrading to Spotify Premium, and you may like a few of the other apps here too.
Vampr and Gigco can both help discover music in different ways to Spotify. Vampr can help musicians network and even monetize their music. Gigco helps fans to find gigs, but it also allows venues to find musicians, and musicians themselves to find work.
For songwriters
There are some good apps in the PlayStore today for any aspiring songsmiths, and one of the best is Songwriter’s Pad. This app helps to generate words, and ideas, for when you have writer’s block. It can also pick out words that rhyme to help the songwriting flow.
If you fancy something a little more old school though, there are physical notebooks from SongFancy that are designed purely for lyrics. They can be customized at the point of purchase so that the size you buy suits you, and you can choose to have them lined, dotted, or just blank.
Physical gadgets for musicians
Not everyone is into apps, and some musicians do prefer the more traditional choices when it comes to musical accessories. Some of these are essential to any musician, but newcomers often overlook at least one of them.
For learning rhythm and keeping in time
The metronome is a device that has been around for a couple of centuries now. However, its importance in learning music can’t be underestimated. It is a great tool for budding musicians as it helps them to learn to play in time.
It can help a guitarist by keeping them from playing too fast. It can keep them focusing on the aspect of playing correctly while later on learning to speed up as their talent grows.
Guitar tuners and pedals
These devices do come in downloadable formats too, but for many, the physical devices can’t be beaten, if they are somewhat digital these days too.
Tuners are vital pieces of equipment for musicians unless they can tune an instrument by ear. The Korg Pitchblack Advance Guitar Tuner is recommended for beginners due to its ease of use.
However, guitar pedals are something different. There are things that can make you nostalgic for old tech such as Sony Walkmans, and the original iRiver.
Listening to Jimi Hendrix or Keith Richards might make you nostalgic for the fuzz box. Adding a guitar pedal to your group of accessories can change your whole sound, and take you in a completely different musical direction.
Summary
There are so many gadgets and apps for musicians that the list could go on for pages. There are accessible DAWs such as GarageBand, and there is a multitude of apps to make your singing voice sound better.
Auto-Tune may be the one that you recognize from Cher to Rhianna and from Beyonce to Kanye West, but there are many imitators now with even Adobe getting in on the act.
Musical education resources also offer valuable help from learning chords, to understanding musical notation. Perhaps one of the easiest additions to your musical learning is to simply search for lessons on YouTube where you can find all manner of tips and advice.
If learning isn’t your cup of tea then just sit back and enjoy Spotify, or find a gig on Gigco in the real world.
