How to Make Tonal Energy Give Note Name Again

I'1000 going to say information technology right now: I'm not a giant fan of digital tuners. In my book,Cello Practice, Cello Performance (Rowman & Littlefield, 2015), I wrote

Playing into a tuner isn't a good style to train the ear. Fifty-fifty if a cellist could play every single note into a tuner with perfect results, this progress would vanish once the tuner was turned off, because truly internalized tuning must exist done with the ears, not the optics. The tuner, in other words, is only useful for tuning the open strings of the cello, not for annihilation else.(p. xv)

There are plenty of great musicians whose playing I respect who would disagree with this, only I stand backside my statement that playing into a tuner doesn't improve your intonation. If it did, there would be a lot less bad intonation in the music schools of this earth.

This said, I kept hearing about a fantastic tuner app called Tonal Energy. It was voted 1 of the tiptop five tuner apps by Bulletproof Musician readers. It was just bachelor for iPhones at the fourth dimension, and I apply Android devices, so I didn't become to try it for a long time.

The day finally came, nevertheless, and I bought the app. A engineering science-loving student showed up at my office hours right after I opened it for the first fourth dimension, and we spent the side by side hr playing with it.

Tonal Energy does a few things that most tuner apps do, such equally measure your pitch in Hz and cents, but it also offers the choice of equal temperament, i.e. "piano tuning," or what it terms "just/pure temperament."

For just intonation, you can choose what key you're in. This sounds brilliant, simply I had some mixed results. For example, if I desire to play in E-apartment major on the cello, I have to brand the E-flat rather sharp then that it sounds skillful when played against the open G string. Tonal Free energy couldn't quite master this, because it registered this E-flat every bit too precipitous. You can mess around with the settings so that A doesn't equal 440Hz if you really want to make it work with your E-flat, merely this doesn't take into account that maybe I want to play other chords in addition to the ever-troublesome E-apartment.

The 2d tab of the app offers drones (my preferred method for intonation practice, by the mode). You can nevertheless measure your pitch with a smaller version of the tuner, and you tin can have your metronome going at the same time…

…which brings me to my next point. I'm definitely loving Tonal Energy'southward metronome, and have now deleted all my other metronome apps because they don't practise as many things. Tonal Energy lets you play in a variety of time signatures, and fifty-fifty thoughtfully gives y'all ii beat options for 5/eight and three for 7/8, plus a range of divisions and subdivisions of beats. I'yard non throwing away my Dr. Beats quite yet–Tonal Free energy doesn't take its full range of functions, and certainly isn't half as loud–simply I was impressed.

If it were only for the functions I've simply described, I don't think I'd bother spending my $3.99 on this app when there are and so many gratis apps that practise pretty much all the things I need in a pinch when I'yard travelling and don't want to lug Dr. Beats and a digital tuner around with me. Just here'southward the thing that makes Tonal Free energyand so, so cool.

Run into this? That's an assay of your frequency in decibels at the meridian. At the bottom, you tin can measure how many overtones you're producing. In the eye, there's a recorder so you can record your sound, then play it dorsum to yourself–and watch your overtones while yous exercise so.

Oh. My. Gosh.

When I was a educatee, I really admired one of my classmates for her ability to produce an incredibly beautiful resonance. When I asked her what her secret was, she said "Well, I guess I only always listen for overtones."

At the time, to my shame, I was only dimly aware of what the overtone series even was. My friend's throwaway remark provoked my fascination with means nosotros tin can produce a bigger, richer tone (of which intonation and vibrato are a part). And notwithstanding, this isn't necessarily the easiest affair to impart to my students, many of whom arrive in my studio with a relatively small tone.

With Tonal Energy, finally I can show them something measurable about the quality of their sound. I've started using it in the studio, subsequently spending hours experimenting with unlike types of sound production in my own practise. I looked at what the app did when I adjusted my intonation to play deliberately out of tune, what it did over bow changes, how I could get it to brand dissimilar shapes by using different types of vibrato. I had some pretty serious fun with this thing.

Now, I still don't think the digital tuner has whatsoever identify in teaching us how to play the cello in tune. There'due south no substitute for listening to your instrument's resonance, and to the resonances of the other instruments in an ensemble. But I have to admit that I'm pretty sold on having the ability to mensurate the quality of my sound. Almost of my students now have this app, and I'thou already hearing an improvement (at present considerately measurable!) in their ability to pull the bow and vibrate consistently and resonantly.

This app is a game-changer.

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Source: https://mirandawilsoncellist.com/2015/10/08/review-tonal-energy-tuner-app/

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