Technology is a great aid to worship leading and preaching. The iPhone brought a stable, dependable computer to our pocket. The platform brought thousands of applications called apps to do anything from database management, Bible reading, personal information management to pitching your songs. Here are a few apps that you might find useful.
Pitch Pipe For iPhone.
This is exactly what the name indicates. It even looks like the old fashioned round pitch pipe we’ve used for years. This app is great because you always have it with you (unless you’re like me and leave your phone at home). The cool thing is you don’t have to worry about pocket lint blocking the reeds. Drawback is you have to leave your phone volume on so there will be a danger of your phone ringing during the service.
TapnTune for iPhone
This little app goes way beyond just giving you pitches. It serves as a 
songbook to store lyrics for all your songs. Probably overkill in this area since you can’t sync the database with SongSelect or other database. It does let you build song sets to keep a record of what you sang when. It allows you to input key and tempo for each song. It has a feature that will scroll the lyrics for you at your chosen speed so you could use this for a cheat monitor. It would be a bit cumbersome to accomplish that during most services. Great tool for a missionary though.
It has a metronome feature which is great for practice and learning those complex new contemporary rhythm patterns.
TapNTune has a great pitchpipe built in as well. The pitch pipe has several octaves to chose from making it handy for tuning any instrument.
The same drawback is present in that you have to leave your ringer on.
Grand Pro
Here is an app that could fill several roles for you. Have you ever had a hard time sight singing a song? Did you every wish you could pick out a harmony part while the melody was going at the same time? Gran Pro can help you in both of these situations. It is a mini piano on your iPhone. It will allow you to display 4 octaves at a time on screen. It is polyphonic in that it will play as many tones as you depress. This is wonderful for giving complicated pitches to a group of people during practice.
The record feature will let you capture a tune you’ve been working on. It has a metronome feature also. The sound quality is amazing for something you carry in your pocket. The piano sounds are sampled so you’re actually hearing piano tones. Here is the feature list from the AppBeacon website:
- 7 octaves of sampled concert grand piano
- – Master tuning
- – Soft (una corda) and sustain (damper) mode with separately sampled sounds
- – Adjustable keyboard size (up to 4 octaves)
- – Built-in advanced metronome
- – Automatic tempo conversion
- – Built-in reverb with adjustable mix level
- – Optional iPod mode – if turned on you can not play in silent mode (iPhone only)
- – Key labels with universal nomenclature and color indication
- – Record, save and playback with customizable project names
- – Overdubing for complex recordings
- – Play chords with up to 5 fingers
- – Slide your fingers to roll the keys
These are just a few tools that will help you with your role in leading music. We will cover a few other areas in our next post. Please take time to recommend this blog to your friends and check out Our Common Salvation blog which is deals more with devotional thoughts. You might also enjoy my YouTube Channel which features some devotional lessons and various topical studies.
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A Capella Worship Leading 