For years I’ve been using the Voice Memos app on my iPhone to record crude demos, or just to get bits of song ideas down while they’re fresh in my mind.
Now Apple has taken Voice Memos to a whole new level with Music Memos, a free iOS app that, according to Apple, takes the functionality of Voice Memos “even further by adding musician-friendly features designed specifically for songwriting and developing musical ideas.”
Here’s what a recent Apple press release says about Music Memos:
With Music Memos, you can record any musical instrument through the iPhone’s built-in microphone in a high-quality, uncompressed format, then name, tag and rate it to start building a library of your ideas. The app can analyze rhythm and chords of acoustic guitar and piano recordings, and instantly add drums and a bass line to provide a virtual, customizable backing band that plays along to match the feel of your song. Music Memos can even provide basic notation that displays the chords that were played. With iCloud® your Music Memos are automatically available across all your Apple devices so you can open them in GarageBand or Logic Pro X℠ to further develop your songs. Musicians can easily share their ideas via email or with their fans through Apple Music™ Connect.
I’ve been trying it out, and the instant band accompaniment is pretty impressive. I mean, I probably wouldn’t use any of it on a final recording, but it’s great to get a sense for how your new ideas will feel when they’re fleshed out with fuller arrangements.
And for anyone who struggles with chord recognition or picking out specific notes in a melody line, this app can be really helpful. Check out Apple’s Music Memos HERE.
Have you been using Music Memos to demo song ideas? What’s your review? Sound off in the comments below.
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Chris Robley is an acclaimed singer-songwriter and award-winning poet from Maine.
His Beatlesque indie-pop and milltown Americana songs have been praised by The Associated Press, No Depression, KCRW, The LA Times, Boston Globe, NPR, American Songwriter, and others.
His poems have appeared in Poetry Magazine, Prairie Schooner, The Poetry Review, and more.
Robley has received a Maine Literary Award in Poetry, Boulevard’s Emerging Writers Prize for Poetry, and in 2016 was selected by former US-poet laureate Robert Pinsky as a finalist for the Dorset Prize.