Tonal Harmony Analysis

When the app first opens, it comes up with a page where you need to type in the name of your worksheet, and choose whether you want a major or a minor key. You can select your key and then click next, although it does advise that you read the instruction manual before continuing. Whilst this is easy and simple to use, I feel that the app would benefit from a clearer welcome page, that gives a brief explanation of what the app can do, and a click button to a ‘create new worksheet’ to take you to this page, and the option of a ‘click to tutorial’. This would certainly help users to navigate the app. I was a little confused at the beginning due to this opening page.

As you follow the guidance to read the instruction manual, and move to the manual page, everything becomes very clear. The manual is excellent, explains the app itself, how to use it, and how you can unlock other key signatures by becoming a premium member. It also explains all the different ways in which the app identifies incorrect choices in chord progressions. It then takes the time to explain each of these common mistakes, with examples. This is ideal for an A Level student, who may have easily forgotten the reasons or concepts behind this. They are very well explained. I would suggest however, that an editor goes through the manual. Although this is a rare occasion, there are some spelling mistakes, and it is currently written in American English in terms of some of the spellings, but in British English for the names of the musical key terms. This is a little confusing.

The premium service appears to allow you to unlock other key signatures. This is really helpful and definitely needed. As the app was free in the first place and provides so much knowledge, I do not mind paying the minimal extra premium fee just to get the correct key signatures. However, that’s all it seems to do. There is so much scope with this app, that it would be great that the premium service (or a tiered service) could offer other options. For example, when composing music, you need to be able to write a melody. This app only allows you to write full chords, and therefore it does not consider a melody over top. This would not be acceptable in most music and creative tasks, and therefore it becomes less useful that it was originally. With the allowance of a melody, this would open up further subject knowledge such as the use of passing notes and how this may affect the harmonic analysis, how you can resolve potential issues, and allows for more creativity.

As you create your chords, you can then save your work as an xml file. This saves direct to the files on your phone, so that you can share this to yourself onto another notation software, or share it to other people, which is a very helpful collaborative opportunity outside of the app. You can save as many worksheets as you want, and this can be quite useful. One area that could be more useful is the playback option. It only seemed to play one note at a time, as a glissando, rather than a full chord. This takes away the full effect of the chord progression, which then means that the aural creativity and analysis is lacking for the student. It would be helpful for the students to be able to hear the chords clearly, so that they can perhaps identify aurally where a mistake may have been made

Despite a few of the comments I have made, this is the first app I have seen that offers this excellent application of the harmonic analysis that is taught to A Level students. Harmonic analysis is a very taxing and difficult process. It is time-consuming, can be frustrating and confusing. This app provides all the knowledge, identification and application of this analysis. Taking away this constant ‘spot-check’ of your work, means that the composer can focus on the creativity and musicality of their work, with the app helping them along with any potential issues that could arise.