– Justin Paul, Oscar, Tony & Grammy Winning Composer/Lyricist Dear Evan Hansen, The Greatest Showman, La La Land
Appcompanist can help teachers and students during this challenging season of school closings, cancellations, and social distancing. We know that online teaching and distance learning can be a difficult substitute for the live voice lesson environment, but when it has to be done for any reason, Appcompanist can really help make it a seamless, productive, and highly musical experience for both teachers and students.
The website is www.appcompanist.com and the App Store page link is https://apps.apple.com/us/app/appcompanist/id1279455633.
For voice teachers Appcompanist facilitates on-line teaching by giving the students the ability to truly accompany themselves on their end of a FaceTime, Zoom, Skype, Google Duo, What’s App, etc. lesson. Students can expertly play the exercises and repertoire with the phone in one hand, and sing in clear view of the teacher, who can then respond and give input as they would in a master class environment. The teacher can visually conduct the student as the student plays and controls the tempo and other musical elements of the accompaniment. Using the app on their end, the teacher can also flexibly accompany themselves to demonstrate for the student. On the exercises, many online teachers have also commented that they point up or down to guide the student on which direction they would like the next scale or arpeggio to go, and in real time the student can use the control arrows on the app to respond.
Appcompanist is a tremendous tool to help students practice, learn repertoire, and stay in shape on their own when their access to lessons, classes and accompanied rehearsal time is limited.
The most important feature of the app is that is puts the user in total musical control of the accompaniment recordings without sacrificing any musical quality. Teachers and students can control tempo in real time; hold fermatas of any length; bring in a melody guide track any time during play and control the volume of melody against the accompaniment; control the direction of repeated vocal exercises; customize and save their own versions of any recording; add markers, cuts, and loops; and more. Because of the patented playback controls, the experience of singing with Appcompanist is far closer to that of working with a live accompanist than it is to any other recorded accompaniment solution. And the repertoire library itself contains only live recordings by some of the industry’s top coach accompanists and collaborative pianists.
The company has made several options available to help teachers and singers during this challenging time:
The FREE version of the app gives users unlimited access to over 550 Vocal Exercises including Marchesi, Vaccai, Concone, Garcia, Panofka, and a number of standard scales and arpeggios. Without a subscription, any singer can access this incredible resource for warm-up and vocal exercise at no cost. They can also view the entire Appcompanist Library and have unlimited access to the 10 Sample Songs that appear in Playlists.
Appcompanist offers a special low-cost subscription option that provides full app functionality with a limited set of repertoire. It’s called the Pick Six Monthly Subscription and it’s perfect for students and beginners who need quality, flexible accompaniment 24/7 but only for a limited number of pieces.
The Pick Six Monthly subscription is only $3.99/month and gives subscribers unlimited access to any six pieces from the Complete Collection. They can choose to swap out any or all of their selected pieces at the end of each monthly billing period. (This subscription does not include a free trial period)
In response to the COVID-19 concerns and the many teachers and students who are struggling in the short-term to come up with teaching and practice solutions, Appcompanist has increased the Free Trial Period on all Unlimited Subscriptions from 7 days to one month. For students trying to fill a short-term video audition need or rep learning need; or for teachers who aren’t sure how long or how often they might utilize the app for online teaching or unaccompanied lessons, this is a great way to gain full access to the library and all the app features at no cost for an entire month. (Please keep in mind that on all iTunes auto-renewable subscriptions, once the free trial expires, a subscription begins automatically. So if you only wish to take advantage of the free month, be sure to cancel prior to the end of the trial period.)
For Android users, we are pushing out a FREE Pre-Release version of the app within the next week that will include unlimited access to all of the Vocal Exercises as well as an expanded set of free songs, chosen in cooperation with NATS to facilitate basic teaching and practice. This free version is intended to get something in the hands of teachers and students that they can use while waiting for the release of the full version currently planned for on or before May 1.
The Unlimited Subscriptions are reasonably priced at $9.99/month for either the Classical Vocal Library or Musical Theater Library each with thousands of titles. And the Complete Collection (5,000 pieces and growing) is $14.99/month. Annual Subscriptions are available at a 20% discount.
Appcompanist was developed by a small team of very dedicated voice teachers and musicians who want to provide the very best teaching and rehearsal tool possible to the vocal community they love and feel honored to serve. They are very responsive to direct communication for repertoire suggestions and other questions, and the website has very detailed information as well as great tutorial videos.
If you find yourself suddenly needing to take the plunge into online teaching or accompany your own lessons when that is not your forté…Appcompanist could be a huge help. And for students who now need to do the bulk of their rep learning and practice, in their own space, this app is a lifesaver.
