Are you the next Mozart? Cool iPhone applications to unveil your latent musical genius

November 27, 9:39 AMSF Consumer Electronics ExaminerJennifer Anthony

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Screenshot of Drum Kit 2.0 by CrimsonJet, Inc.

A friend recently told me that her daughter started violin lessons at seven years old, but that she might never be a virtuoso. Her instructor said the child had started “much too late.” Could this be the reason my piano lessons didn’t quite work out at age ten? Apparently Mozart could read and write music and play the piano and the violin by age five.

Alas. I am a firm believer that you can teach an old dog new tricks, even if you’re a doddering seven-year-old. The iTunes application store has some amazing and fun applications that will dazzle those people who started to play an instrument at six months and those, like me, whose lessons started in the double digits and didn’t quite “take.” There are even more obscure options that will ensure that you are the only one playing that particular instrument in your newly formed iPhone garage band.

1. FingerPiano by Junpei Wada ($2.99). Released November 13, 2008. FingerPiano lets you play the piano with your forefinger in landscape mode. Users can choose to play their own songs. Or they can select from a list, each of which has “scrolling guides” to help them play (think Tetris or Dance Dance Revolution, but with your finger). Songs includes holiday ditties (e.g., “Silent Night”), the basics (e.g., “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”), or even a piece by Mozart (e.g., “Eine kleine Nachtmusik”). Sure the sound is a bit more tinny than the Baby Grand gathering dust in the corner, but this application is easy enough for a un-trained monkey (read: me) to use.

2.  Drum Kit 2.0 by CrimsonJet, Inc. (99 cents). Released November 26, 2008. For about a dollar, users can have a snazzy six-piece drum kit [4 toms, snare, bass, hi-hat (open and closed), crash, ride, and splash]. The software offers four kits: classic, rock, hip hop, and techno. Two players can collaborate on a beat and users get visual feedback when a drum head is tapped. But perhaps the best (and potentially most annoying to others, depending on your skill level) is that you can play songs in iTunes and play along on your new instrument. If you missed your chance to wow the neighbors with a garage drum set, here, at last, is your chance.   

3. Jingle Bells by Armin Heinrich (99 cents). Released November 23, 2008. If you’ve always yearned to play the bells, now is the time. This application offers 14 bells to ring in the holidays. Since I am not yet a virtuoso, the lack of any sort of guidance had me tapping away as fruitlessly as when I took hold of a glockenspiel at age 10, but it’s fun nonetheless. Perhaps one of the funniest things about this application was one of the reviews, which quipped, “Ringiton!” Also amusing for the not-yet-virtuoso is the YouTube video which shows “how to play” songs. I couldn’t quite follow along with the shadowy forefinger tapping out Jingle Bells, but I had a laugh trying.

4. Noise Trio by Amidio Inc. (Free). Released November 22, 2008. The home page of this software gives you the choice of three different musicians and accompanying instruments: an Oriental Flute, a Rock Guitar, or Eastern Bells. If users choose the rather sultry geisha, for example, they are transported to a grid on which they can slide their finger up and down to create music (and even add some background beat). This application won’t turn anyone into a musician, but I imagine it could provide some brief and bewildering entertainment at a party. And it’s free, so what is there to complain about?

5. Gangsa by Masayuki Akamatsu (99 cents). Released November 20, 2008. Perhaps you want to wow friends and family with a more obscure instrument. The Gangsa is a musical instrument used in Balinese Gamelan, an Indonesian traditional performing art. The software developers promise that you “can make a long beautiful sound by tapping a metal bar.” And indeed it does make a sonorous sound. The upside here for budding virtuosos is that you can play what you like and claim to be playing a classic if you furrow your brows and look very serious. Note: this tactic will not work if you have any covert gangsa players in the audience.

For less than six dollars, you are well on your way to proving that old and grizzled dogs (e.g., anyone old enough to read this) can indeed learn new tricks. And who knows? Perhaps you really are the next Mozart after all.