Surprisingly, I haven’t expressed gratitude for any phone app since I began this exercise. This makes me wonder about how we or I value the utility and pleasure the devices hold. One thing I’m sure of is that I play a heckuva lot more piano because of an app called Chordify.
When you search and find a musical YouTube video via Chordify, the app plays the video and audio and presents the chords of the music. A kind of playhead moves through the chord progression as the song plays. So as to not bore the child that might be on your lap, a thumbnail of the video plays in the lower right.
I’m not a great piano player or singer and I’m less great when attempting to do both at once. That said, I think both have improved while having fun trying to keep up with the music for the last few years. Likewise, the kids have surely developed a better ear and appreciation for the structure of a song.
For the first time, I heard what I thought was Matteo playing a bit of melody to the twin’s favorite song I Love the Mountains. He heard it too and it was the first time that I’ve sensed a real excitement about what he was (we were) pulling off. The law of averages might suggest that after a few years, a couple seconds of tunefulness is probably inevitable. I’d like to think that instead of dumb luck, it was two vibing musicians being “in the pocket” with a long future of melody ahead of us.