Optimize Your Music Life: 10 Apps Every Musician Should Use

The essential digital toolkit for musicians, teachers, and performers.

Photo by Soundtrap on Unsplash

We’ll be up-front. If you haven’t noticed by now, we’re both type-A. We like organized. And as we both get busier with teaching and performances, we also love anything that makes our lives easier. We love a good list, a calendar, a planner, and of course, a good app. Here’s a curated list of 10 apps we use on a regular basis to optimize our lives as musicians, in no particular order (but to be honest, I would have fought hard to put Notion first if we were going in order of importance!)

Must Haves

• Notion (Free+)

  Think of it as a digital bullet journal. This app has run my life since my third year of teaching, and now as someone who is self-employed and works for several different clients throughout the week, it still runs my life. It keeps track of my to-dos, long-term planning for concerts and other projects, repertoire list, performance list, audition info/deadlines/notes, notes from summer programs and coachings and more. It’s endlessly customizable, which is both a blessing and a curse. If you’re going to set up your own Notion, make sure you have clear goals and a large chunk of time to tinker with it. It’s an investment on the front end! If this is too much, we’re using a similar app (Milanote) to plan this blog. A little more freeform and great for brainstorming.

  Bonus: Check out my free repertoire log and performance log Notion templates.

• Spoken (Free+)

  Unfortunately, I lost my voice for about 6 weeks this past fall. I was sick of gesturing and scribbling on notepads but needed an alternative way to communicate. I saw a Youtube short of Steven Hawking communicating with his language board, and wondered if there was a similar app…Spoken is that app. The app uses AI LLM to help you type a message or construct a message from a list of words. Then, push play and the app “speaks” for you. You can also add custom words to the word list. It also has a feature which will blink your phone flashlight to get someone’s attention.

• CyberBass.org (Free, website)

  I was introduced to this website when I was in college. While it’s not visually stimulating, I love what it has to offer when it comes to learning your part for choral works. This website isolates all four parts of essentially any major oratorio or cantata work to help you learn your part. You can adjust the speed, which I find particularly helpful when it comes to quick moving sections of Bach’s cantatas. Once you’ve worked through your own part, you can add in all the voice parts and sing along with it. This helps you determine which parts you can confidently carry on your own, and which ones you need to go back and work a little more. I use this website in conjunction with playing the notes out on the piano, singing a cappella, and singing along with professional recordings. This way I feel like I tackle the songs from multiple angles; technical, artistic, and ensemble.

• forScore (Paid; one-time fee or annual subscription)

  I’m new to forScore, but I’m already finding it to be a helpful tool. If you’re tired of lugging around music anthologies and all of your scores, this is a great place to upload your scores as PDFs to keep in one place. I was able to easily upload all my PDF scores on my computer and add them to the app. It also easily connects to Apple Files, Dropbox, and Box, as well as apps like Musicnotes, Noteflight, Virtual Sheet Music, Carl Fischer, Presser, BriLee. I have an extensive collection of music through MusicNotes, so I loved being able to put all of my scores in one place rather than navigating the “is this in MusicNotes, Files, a printed anthology, or somewhere else” game every time I need to find my music. I haven’t used it in performance yet, but I’m excited about the prospect of using this app to consolidate my scores for performance.

• Appcompanist (Paid; monthly or annual subscriptions with 3 options: full catalog, musical theatre catalog or classical catalog)

  I could not survive without this app. Appcompanist is a vast collection of piano accompaniments for both classical and musical theatre solo songs. Not only does this app contain accompaniments for almost every song you could need, but you have a lot of control over how it’s played. You can change the accompaniment to any key, adjust the tempo, cut sections to exclude parts you don’t want, hold fermatas, include the melody (with adjustable blending), and so much more. I use this to practice all my solo songs, and also have my students use this for auditions. I love the “cut” feature, because it lets you adjust or loop the track for auditions or performances. You can also video record yourself singing with the accompaniment and watch it back, which is an incredibly helpful tool when it comes to preparing for a performance. This is a must-have for both my performing and teaching.

• YNAB (Paid; Monthly/Annual Subscription)

  I use YNAB (You Need a Budget) to set and track my budget, plan for large purchases, and review my spending at the end of each month. While I don’t use it for taxes, I use it to verify my income with Quickbooks to make sure my finances are aligning. There are many budgeting apps out there, and others that are likely similar that I haven’t researched, but overall I like the functionality, ease of use, and clean aesthetics of the app. Since most singers are either freelance or work multiple jobs, it’s helpful to have a tool that helps you manage your income and spending.

• Practice+ (Free +)

  Combines metronome (with beat accent, light and subdivision features), tuner and pitch drones. Also has the ability to create a tempo loop, slowly increasing the tempo by a set number of clicks, allowing you to drill difficult passages, and a recorder. I use it to practice all the time when I’m away from the piano.

• SingScope (Free)

  SingScope is for all the voice nerds. This app tracks your pitch, sound waves, and even vibrato consistency. If you’re having trouble locking in a certain pitch, or sense that your vibrato is inconsistent, this app helps you watch your voice in real-time, enabling you to make adjustments while working through a specific pattern or interval. If you’re a teacher, this can also be a helpful tool when a student isn’t singing the correct pitch but they can’t seem to hear it. Having a visual is an incredibly helpful tool.

  Teacher’s note: If this is too advanced, I also encourage you to check out the Ella app. Ella is a gamified app that helps beginner singers match pitch. I like it because it lets the singer see when their pitch is going too high or too low rather than just hear it, and it shows it in several formats. I’ve had young and beginner singers use it to supplement their lessons, and it has made a huge difference.

• Marco Polo (Free+)

  I met so many amazing people this past summer at different programs. We live all across the country, so seeing each other on a regular basis is near-impossible. This has been an amazing way to stay in touch!

  I have actually used this app most for voice lessons, both as a teacher and as a singer. I know many teachers who use Marco Polo as a resource for asynchronous lessons. In the past, before I began using PracticeSpace, I had singers send me videos of their practices during the week so I could continue offering feedback and continue the learning process. Kaitlyn and I also use this when texting just isn’t enough to tell a story or process something.

• Practice Space (Paid; Monthly subscription)

  As a teacher, Practice Space has become an essential teaching tool. All of my students create accounts where I give them assignments, general notes, practice resources, videos, and more. Students are then able to see the exact assignments/exercises I want them to practice during the week, and they have access to unlimited resources to help them learn how to practice. The app also has many gamified and motivational options, where students can aim for a practice streak like DuoLingo, earn gems, or earn points to be the top practicer on the leaderboard each week. It even has a chat feature that lets me communicate directly with students individually or in groups so that I no longer need to give out my phone number. I love that the group chat lets me create more community amongst my singers, which has grown incredibly over the last few years.

Honorable Mentions

• Facebook Groups (Free)

  I don’t post often, but I check Facebook several times a day. I belong to several local networking groups for musicians, and these groups have been invaluable for discovering/promoting concerts, getting last-minute sub gigs and networking.
  I mostly use Facebook to communicate with my professional group, The SpeakEasy Cooperative, a group of voice-related business professionals. I go there to discuss business, pedagogy, repertoire, and sometimes just to share stories with like-minded singers and business owners. Communities like this are going strong on Facebook, and it is an endlessly helpful resource.

• Youtube (Free+)

  In addition to watching performances and masterclasses on Youtube, I use it to make playlists for specific performances to aid in memorization and to sing along with accompanist tracks when scheduling conflicts prevent me from meeting with my pianist.

• Spotify (Free+)

  Of course, this is great for studying recordings and discovering rep, but it is also helpful for memorization. I made a playlist with all my recital repertoire last summer and listened to it every day as I ran, seeing if I could audiate the words correctly in my head along with the recording.
  I use Spotify to create playlists of my upcoming performances so I can play them on repeat in the background when I move around my house. It helps me get into the feel of the song and absorb it in a different way than my intentional practice. I also use it extensively for my teaching, creating genre playlists for my students so they can discover new repertoire and make song selections. It helps them gain autonomy in selecting their own songs, but from a curated list with a specific goal in mind.

• Canva (Free+)

  Graphic design app. We’ve used it to make concert posters, social media posts, brand logos, performance announcements and more.

• Voice Memos (Free)

  I always record my coachings to study later. This is also great for recording pronunciation, accompaniments or even using memos almost like flashcards for memorization. Record the literal translation, listen to it and then test yourself to see if you can provide the text in the original language or vice versa. Record the melody and see if you can sing it with text…get creative!

These tools have saved us time, energy and stress. We hope a few of these apps solve some problems and make your life easier, too. Is there an app you love that we didn’t include in the list? Leave us a comment!

This post is not sponsored by any app mentioned. If you are interested in sponsoring a Diva Diaries post, please comment or email us at thedivadiariesblog@gmail.com. We’d love to chat!

Xoxo,

Kaitlyn + Sarah

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Upcoming Performances

• Bach Duets & Arias: March 22, 12:45pm (note new time)

  • Sarah Hamilton & Kaitlyn Townsend, mezzo-sopranos & Tracey Schimmel Reed, pianist

  • Christ Lutheran Church, Staunton, VA

  • FREE

• Bach Around the Clock: March 22 at 8pm

  • BATC Festival Choir & Paul Weber, conductor (Sarah + Kaitlyn are both singing as members of the choir)

  • Christ Lutheran Church, Staunton, VA

  • FREE