To help a beginning musician: 12 useful VKontakte applications

For beginner musicians, many interactive applications have been created on the VKontakte social network that allow you to learn notes, intervals, chords, and properly tune the guitar. Let’s try to figure out whether and how such applications really help you master the basics of music.

Virtual piano VKontakte

Let’s start, perhaps, with a fairly popular (on the pages of half a million users) flash application “Piano 3.0”, intended for both beginners and people who already know notes and can play melodies on a real piano.

The interface is presented in the form of a standard piano keyboard. Each key is signed: a letter indicates a note, a number indicates the corresponding octave, although this is not done entirely according to the rules, since numbers should indicate the sounds of the octaves from the first to the fifth, small letters without numbers usually indicate the sounds of a small octave, and large letters (with strokes instead digits) – sounds of octaves, starting from major and lower (to subcontractave).

Sounds from the virtual piano can be extracted by clicking on the keys with the mouse, or using a computer keyboard – the corresponding key designations are indicated on the screen. But the lucky ones are the owners of tablet computers – if the application runs on their device, then they will be able to play the virtual piano in the most ordinary way – with their own fingers!

What else is interesting about the application? It allows you to play simple melodies, record and store the user’s creativity. Its advantages: you can play with two hands, play chords, and fast passages are allowed.

Among the shortcomings, only one can be highlighted: there is no effect of changing the sound volume depending on the force of pressing the key. In general, this application, of course, will not replace a real piano, but it is possible to master the keyboard, learn notes, names of octaves and construct chords with its help.

Large chord database

Beginning guitarists often face the problem of choosing the right chords for their favorite songs. The ability to select harmonies by ear will come with experience, but for now, the application will help beginners “Chords”. It was installed by 140 thousand VKontakte users. Essentially, the application is a large book of chords for the most popular songs of various genres with easy search capabilities.

The user menu allows you to search for songs by alphabet, rating, new releases, and preferences of other users. It is possible to upload your own selections of chords for songs and save your favorite compositions.

The obvious advantages of the application are easy access to several harmonies of the same composition (if any). True, there are not enough explanations on how to play complex chords – beginners would benefit from corresponding diagrams in the form of tablatures.

Considering the above, we conclude that this application will be very useful for inexperienced guitarists.

Tuning your guitar is easy!

Proper guitar tuning can sometimes cause problems for the self-taught musician. To help him in this difficult matter, VKontakte offers two applications – “Guitar tuning fork” and “Guitar tuner”.

“Tuning fork” is the simplest development for tuning an instrument by ear. The custom window is represented by a headstock with six tuners. When you press the peg, a sound is produced that corresponds to the specific open string. A very convenient “Repeat” button – if it is turned on, the selected sound will be repeated.

If it’s difficult to tune by ear, or you just want to achieve the perfect sound, you should connect your guitar to the computer (or bring it closer to the microphone connected to the PC) and launch the “Tuner” application. This is a full-fledged program for tuning a guitar in manual or automatic mode.

The user is offered several types of tunings. You can tune the instrument using the sound scale on the application screen. If the arrow has reached the middle of the mark, the note sounds perfectly clear.

Bottom line: the first application is suitable for quick classical tuning of an acoustic six-string. The second is useful if you need to quickly and efficiently change the tuning of an instrument and rebuild it flawlessly.

Useful games

Available on VKontakte six interesting interactive applications from Viratrek LLC:

• popular chords;
• names of piano keys;
• notes in treble clef;
• notes in bass clef;
• musical timbres;
• musical symbols.

Their purpose can be determined based on their names. Essentially, these are interactive toys designed to identify chords, notes in different keys, musical symbols, etc. by ear.

Simple applications will be useful only for beginning students of music schools, or for musicians just mastering the basics of notation.

Simple audio editors

If you need to effortlessly cut out a fragment of a song or make a simple mix of several songs, you should use applications “Trim a song online” and “Merge songs online”.

They are characterized by intuitive controls. One of the positive qualities is the recognition of almost all audio formats. True, the interface does not provide musical effects, except for a smooth start and fade-out.

In general, the applications reviewed cannot be called ordinary toys – simple and accessible, they will be a good guide for beginners in the world of music.