It would be good, at this time, for us to review the Prime Directive behind this "course of study" called PHSS-101:
"[T]o let
the Word of Christ richly dwell in us in all wisdom, teaching,
admonishing, and speaking to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual
songs, singing with grace and making melody in our hearts to the Lord
(Eph 5:19; Col 3:16) in a decent and orderly manner (1Co 14:40)."
As was brought out in
a previous post, all of the "courses" in this blog are written with that purpose in mind, but THIS one, "Song Leading Conventions", is focused mostly on the last part of that directive quoting 1 Corinthians 14:40: doing what we can to make sure that when we worship in song, particularly as we lead the congregation in singing, that we do so in a manner that is decent and orderly.
When leading singing, there are three things of which you need to be especially mindful: tempo, dynamics, and pitch. As I brought up in "
YOU Are the Leader: Keep It Going!", your task is keep everybody on tempo, get them to follow the dynamics of the song (any change in volume, tempo, etc.), and keep them on key. But all this can be defeated if you don't begin the song in the correct key!
Granted, "the correct key" can be rather subjective. I have noticed over the years, for instance, that most songs written in the key of F sound and feel much better in the key of G; raising a song by that great a distance (one whole step) can usually be troubling, but as I said,
MOST songs in F seem to follow that pattern. As you go along, you may find that some songs sound better when done in a different key; perhaps it's easier for your congregation to sing this song in D rather than E-flat since the altos seem to come out more. But whether you strictly follow the notation in the music or simply remember what pitch sounds better, you've only got three ways to choose your pitch: having perfect pitch, having memory pitch, or using an outside aid such as a pitch pipe or tuning fork (there is a fourth option, but simply singing at some random pitch usually leads to disastrous results).
With all that we can do with our smart phones, it sometimes seems a wonder we were able to do ANYTHING before we had them! Even pitch pipes are available through most sources (in my case, I scouted around the Apple App Store, but I'm certain there are some for Android and others as well). This blog post will review some of the FREE pitch pipe apps that I found, all of them specifically noted for helping with A Capella pitch (I ignored anything specifically for tuning instruments such as guitar, violin, etc.). As you will note, they seem to fall under two main categories: those that are plain, basic, simple pitch pipes; and those that have a few extra features included with them, some quite useful, some rather frilly, some that are...unrecognizable[!]. For each one, I'll give a synopsis of what features it has (basic or otherwise) and compare their pros and cons.
I had originally planned to review THREE of them and actually use them in worships services as I was planning out this blog post (took some people aback somewhat when they saw a sparkle of light reflected in my left ear from my hands-free device, which I used so that only
I would hear the tone). However, after doing so with ONE of these, I discovered FOUR more! After experimenting with them outside the worship service, I found they all had enough similarities that I could avoid experimenting with them all individually and expedite the completion of this. So, here goes:
Update [14-April, 2018]: MOST of these apps are rather difficult, if not downright impossible, to find anymore, at least on the iTunes App Store. Most of them have not been updated for the newest version of iOS ("11" at the time of this update) and can not be used on my current phone [I would imagine if you have an iPhone or other device with an older iOS and can find these apps, you could still use them]. But I have labelled each one with notes pointing out if it is not supported by iOS-11, if it can no longer be found on the App Store, or even if it's still out there and simply not supported by the new iOS (there is ONE example of that, btw!) If anyone is an Android user or has access to any other app platforms out there, I would really like to hear from you regarding these apps as well as any other apps I have not covered. I hope to work on an updated version of this commentary and have it ready in the near future to cover additional tuning apps that have been made available on various app stores (though I will be mostly covering those available on the iTunes App Store because that's the kind of phone I have and I like shiny things[!]).
Simple Pitch Pipes
There are THREE apps I found that were simply basic pitch pipes:
Pitch Pipe Buddy (from Claire Holmes)(No Longer Supported on iOS 11, older version still available on iTunes App Store)
"Pitch Pipe Buddy" is probably the simplest and perhaps most pleasing to work with of the three basic pitch pipes. On the screen, it looks like a typical, physical, analog pitch pipe like you might purchase at a music store. All the tones to choose from are laid out in a circular pattern with a sharp AND flat symbol where needed between all the correct natural tones (C-to-D, D-to-E, F-to-G, etc.), from C to B for one octave [almost].
Of the good features I find on "Pitch Pipe Buddy," one of my favorites is it's simple layout. It LOOKS like a pitch pipe. And although it may seem antithetical to have something other than the usual tone (sounding like a harmonica) emanating from this, it's rather pleasing to hear the sound of a piano key being pressed and held till it fades away. This is a more pleasing tone in my opinion, especially compared to how MOST if not ALL of the others employ a simple sine wave which sounds rather "meh!" to me. Interestingly enough, while one tone is fading, you can press another tone so you can hear them both at the same time until fade-out. This comes in handy when a chosen song doesn't begin on the same note as its key signature ("Our God, He is Alive", for example, is written in D-flat, but begins on A-flat; by pressing D-flat on the screen, you'll establish what key it's supposed to be in, and by pressing the A-flat while the other tone still sounds you can establish your starting note). And as this is a free app, they have to make money somehow; ads come up, but they display in a very small area closer to the bottom of the screen.
Unfortunately, there no instructions that come with this app (in fact, almost none of these apps come with any). So one almost has to experiment with it, like I did, to pick up on all the features. In fact, there is a button included that turns on something labeled "Loop"; I did not notice any change of any sort when I activated the "Loop" so I didn't include this as an extra feature. The only other bad thing I can find on this particular app is that every so often an "Alert" will come up on the screen asking you to "click an advert below to remove this message for a few days" (we
all seem to be slaves to the advertisers!). Other than these points about instructions and the pratfalls of the advertisements, this is an all around good app to use if you simply want to establish your starting note for a song.
Pitch Pipe! (from CodProd)(No Longer Supported on iOS 11, no longer on iTunes App Store)
This is an interesting one to work with. It lists the tones you want almost like a list format except that each tone is represented by a 2-dimensional drawing of a musical pipe labeled with its intended tone, given various lengths to denote high notes versus low notes. When you press one of the "pipes", the tone fades in and will either continue sounding before fading out in about 10 seconds or will deactivate if you press any tone on the screen. There is even a small cloud that appears next to the "pipe" to conveniently indicate which one is playing (at first I found it rather backwards, thinking it was meant to represent the sound emanating from it, even though it was coming from the side one into which one would normally blow; taking a closer look, however, it looks more like wind going INTO the "pipe", so the representation doesn't break down too badly).
On the plus side, this app is fully functional as a pitch pipe. Although it is a free app, there are no advertisements displayed, thus no distractions.
Unfortunately, there are no instructions with this app (same as mentioned before). There is a small white circle with a lower case "i" on it, usually indicative of some additional information or something, but when you press it a pop-up box comes up saying "
Coming Soon! Settings coming soon!" And if you push "Alright!" at the bottom of the box, you simply return to the pipe screen. Also, all tones are listed as either natural or sharp (if your song is in the key of E-flat, you MAY NOT realize that D-sharp will get you the note you desire). Besides all this, the tone sound also seems to be a cross between a sine wave and the ugly sound that comes from the plastic reeds of some of those cheap plastic toy instruments like you might find at the Dollar Tree store. If you use this app, make sure you use a hands free device or ear buds, anything so that you (and only you) will experience the brunt of the
noise sound from this tone.
Free Tuner (from J. William Studios)[now called Quick Pocket Tuner]
"Free Tuner" is another basic pitch pipe app that is fully functional. It displays all the tone choices is a grid, not at all like an actual pitch pipe, but still a pleasant sight for the eyes.
One major thing going for this free app is that any advertisements that may show up are displayed in a discrete place at the top of the screen (although, honestly, I never saw any ads come up whenever I ran the app, just a small white bar that had a tiny "Ad" label on it). Also the tones laid out for your choice include some flats as well as sharps. Unfortunately, unlike the "Pitch Pipe Buddy", you are stuck to choosing between C, C-sharp, D, E-flat, E, F, F-sharp, G, A-flat, A, B-flat, and B. Most of these are fairly common, but I'd think one might be more likely to look for D-flat than they would for C-sharp. And, as has been par for the course so far, there are no instructions to go with this app.
Pitch Pipe Apps with Additional Features
Of the four apps that remain to be reviewed, I found THREE that had some additional features, some fairly useful, some at least interesting, others so beyond understanding..., well, just read the rest of the post:
Pitch Perfect (Digital Pitch Pipe)(from Depollsoft)
From their
website:
Pitch Perfect
is a utility app for the musically inclined. At its core, it’s a
digital pitch pipe, allowing musicians to take an initial pitch before
beginning or rehearsing a song. If you’re the type of person who
struggles to match a key signature to the name of a key, the app
provides visual aids to make it as easy as matching what you see on your
sheet music with the image on your screen. For singers who keep a list
of songs and their keys, Pitch Perfect makes it easy!
With the Pitch Perfect app, you are given three screens giving different ways to choose your pitch (four, if you include the last screen where you can list your songs!). It is simply a matter of touching the screen on the pitch you desire for how long you want to listen to it; no echo effects, no de facto chord production, simply let go of the pitch to deactivate.
This was the only app I actually used during a song service for this review (once I used it and figured it out, I supposed testing the other apps in similar manner wasn't necessary), and I enjoyed it. This app offers FOUR ways to get your pitch depending on which screen you use:
- On the FIRST screen, all the keys are laid out as one would see on a physical pitch pipe (except in a square). There is a switch in the middle of the notes that allows you to either go from C to B or from F to E.
- On the SECOND screen, all the pitches are listed in chromatic order (C, C#/Dd, D, D#/Ed, etc.; yes, THIS one lists each non-natural tone with sharps AND flats!), along with their Hertz value (how many cycles-per-second the tone actually is) over a range of EIGHT octaves [!] (almost like a piano!).
- The THIRD screen lists each key with a picture of its key signature as you'd see it noted on the music along with a listing of its name. This list begins with G-flat (showing its 6 flat signs) and goes down the list with each "flat" key using one less flat till you come to F (with only ONE flat), then listing C with NO accidentals (sharps OR flats), then commencing with G with its ONE sharp and listing every other key based on the number of sharps it uses, going all the way to F# (with SIX sharps [I can honestly say, I don't think I have ever intentionally played ANYTHING in that key signature!!!]). As an added bonus, at the top of the screen is a switch so that you can show them as major OR minor keys. This is especially useful, I think, for anyone who is not as musically literate to have either memorized the key signatures or learned the trick to recognizing them (with flats, the second-to-the-last flat is the key of the song [except F where there is ONLY ONE flat; you just HAVE to memorize that one]; with sharps, take the LAST sharp listed and go UP one half-step [if the last sharp is C#, it's the key of D]).
- The FOURTH screen is probably my favorite. You can list your songs along with their keys. Now you can have your song list as you lead, and all you have to do is press the song to get your key (I normally use the AnyList app to list my song service and cross out each song and event [prayer, scripture reading, lesson, etc.] as I go along; if I had known how to use THIS feature when I ran my experiment, I would have used it to the fullest!)
Interestingly enough, there are three more features on this app which are the last that I have learned about. On the top right side of every screen is a button marked with a square and an arrow coming from the middle and pointing to the top. When you press that, you are offered: 1) "Toggle Notes": with this, you can press the tone and it will play until you press that same tone again (you can use this feature to make chords if you so desire). 2) "Wake lock": rather than going to your Settings menu on your phone and resetting it so as not to turn off after two-, three-, four-minutes (or more or less), you can activate this switch so that the phone will not go into sleep mode while you're using the app. 3) "Log in": you can log in to this app's creator via Facebook (facebook.com/pitchperfectapp, although, I have noticed they have not made any additional posts since December 2016 [!]) and back up your song list and settings and even synchronize them with your other devices.
There are some down sides to this app, unfortunately. For one thing, being a "free" app, the developers have to make a living somehow, so these folks have ads that come up in a thin strip at the top of the screen; that in and of itself may not be so bad except for when some of the ads are animated and can be distracting (and if you're an iPhone user like me, your propensity is already set to liking and being attracted to shiny things!). Also, the tone they use is your basic sine wave, which sounds rather "meh" in my opinion; fortunately, you only have to hear the sound as long as you are holding the note down on the screen (or until you tap the tone a second time as I mentioned last paragraph). But I think all the great features on this app MORE than make up for its shortcomings, so all in all, not a bad app.
Pitch Pipe Now (from Ian Ritter)(No Longer Supported on iOS 11, no longer on iTunes App Store)
"Pitch Pipe Now" is an interesting little app to say the least, and it would simply be your basic pitch pipe app were it not for a couple of extra features. When you open the app, it displays a "C Pitch Pipe", with the tones from C to C laid out in a grid pattern (similar to J. William Studios' "Free Tuner" except laid out height-wise rather than width-wise). When you push the "Next" button on the top right of the screen you are presented with "Instructions" (about time!), "Record Warning" (which may come in handy [?] if you are recording with people and want to warn others of such), and "Pitch Pipe in F" which is just like the "C Pitch Pipe" (in the same grid fashion) but going from F to F. When you push a tone, it holds it out for about two seconds which allows you to form some de facto chords if you wish (another application could be playing the key note [or the tonic note that the song is keyed in] and the starting note at the same time, such as "Our God, He is Alive"; while you hear it's key note of D-flat, you can simultaneously hear its starting note of A-flat).
Interestingly enough, all those features I listed are the "pros" on this app; as the instructions say, it truly is a "'No Frills'" app "for quick pitch referencing in the keys of C & F (chromatic scale)." Beyond that, the tone they use is, again, rather "meh!", sounding more like a cheap plastic reed used on some toy musical instrument one might buy at the Dollar Tree Store [again!] (I THINK it's supposed to simulate an actual pitch pipe tone, though). Also, you have to go through two screens to switch from F pitch pipe to C pitch pipe and back again. This app also simply lists each tone as either natural or sharp, no flats listed, similar to the "Pitch Pipe!" and "Free Tuner" apps. After working with the "Pitch Perfect" app, this one is a disappointment.
Pitch Awesome (from David Brownman)(No Longer Supported on iOS 11, no longer on iTunes App Store)
"Pitch Awesome" is another simpler pitch pipe app that has a couple of extra features added to it to make it more interesting. Just as with "Pitch Pipe Now", the notes are lad out in a grid, but you can switch from a higher octave to a lower octave (and back again if you choose). Also, with the pitch pipe side of this app, you must hold the tone down to hear it, it does not stay on until you press it again or hold out for a couple of seconds as in some other apps. This app also includes a "Songs" list which you can list your song titles and what keys they are in. And just like the "Pitch Perfect" app, you can press the song title to get the key for your song, and this time it holds the tone out either until it stops in a couple of seconds or you press the song again to shut it down.
On the downside, there are no instructions with the app (a recurring theme, for some reason!). The tones are also laid out as naturals and sharps, again no flats. Also, making a song list is a rather arduous process (at least by first-world-problems standards). You begin by pressing the plus sign in the upper right hand corner and type in your title, then press "Done". Then you press "Edit" at the upper LEFT side of the screen, select the song you are entering, THEN choose what key you are doing it in. As I said before, after working with "Pitch Perfect", this app also leaves plenty to be desired.
Pitch Pipe Pro (Pitchpipe)(from Kaupang Studios, Inc.)(No Longer Supported on iOS 11, no longer on iTunes App Store)
I find it interesting that, with these apps, if they go beyond being a simple pitch pipe app, they tend to lose something if they add certain features apparently without thinking ahead (the "Pitch Perfect" app being the exception). With the "Pitch Pipe Pro" app, we come to what is perhaps not only my least LIKED app of this group, it is the one that I least UNDERSTAND.
When the app starts up, the layout is atrocious to begin with. With the app title featured at the top middle, to the right of it is a labeled volume control with a graduating meter fixed between a minus and a plus button. To the left of the title is another plus- and minus-button pair that doesn't show what it does until you push one of the buttons, at which point you have octave control of your pitch, giving you the ability to go up or down an octave at a time, giving you a range of five octaves. Towards the middle of the screen is an interesting layout of controls to select tone. Shaped like the bottom of a dress shoe, the "heel" section (to the left) features a button marked "Pocket Tones". Around the rest of the "footprint [?]" are the tones you can choose, from C to B, laid out clockwise. The only noticeable "pro" on this is the fact that tones that are not among the natural ones are labeled between the naturals with a "#/b" sign, denoting it could be either sharp or flat (a welcome change considering most of these apps label them as all sharps!).
Beyond that, there's not much good to say about this app. As usual, there are no instructions. When you press a tone, it will continue to play until you either push another tone button or press the (previously undefined) "Pocket Tones" button to the left. If you need to hear any tone after that, it will sound very softly and you'll have to press one of the volume buttons to return it to whatever volume you were playing it at before. Beyond that, ads come up randomly but frequently and they cover the entire area of the screen where you will be working (imagine needing to get a pitch for "It Is Well with My Soul" and, rather than hearing the A-natural you were seeking, you find yourself in the "App Store" checking out a silly game app; it could happen!!!). With so fancy a layout as is given to this app, one would think more thought would be put into making it to be functional in its design. If all these apps were ranked in some hierarchy, this one would make being second-to-last look like a thing to be aspired!!!
To sum up my recommendations, "Pitch Pipe Buddy" is perhaps the best app to work with, particularly if you simply need a pitch pipe. It sounds great and is very easy to use. If you need some extra features to help with leading singing, then "Pitch Perfect" is the ONLY one to go with. None of the others have near the versatility of this one (and I must say, they must have put a LOT of thought behind it, despite the ads and the tone being the only things I mentioned that I had problems with [although, to be fair, I did forget to mention that it, too, does NOT come with instructions; would have made it much easier for me to actually FIND all the extra features it has!]).
If you have any experience with these apps or have any additional ones to introduce, please pass it along, either in the comments section or via email. Beyond all that, I hope this may help you in your quest to help and lead others to sing praise to the Most High and to teach and encourage each other in these psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.
--bas4d
