Chordica Review

There are several things I want to do with my life that I know I’ll never be able to do. One of them is being a musician. I understand music theory, I’ve been in several choirs and even do musical improv all the time. But for some reason I can’t seem to figure out how to play instruments very well… including the banjo I started playing in my “I want to be Steve Martin” phase many years ago.

I’m always looking for ways to make music, but outside of a kazoo, I’ve not found much that works.

That’s why I love things like Chordica. With just a few pushes of a button I can be playing chords and making music, most times without even knowing what I’m doing. Within a few minutes I was bugging my family by talking to them through song while backing myself up on my iPhone.

Yes, my house can be a pretty strange place at times.

Chordica is at first one of the most frustrating, non-user-friendly apps you’re likely to see. There is almost no instructions to the game and even the little bit you can read about doesn’t come close to telling you what to do.

I started pushing buttons around and was having an “alright” time with things, but it wasn’t what I was hoping for.

Then I went to the website (chordica.com) and saw that they had a slew of tutorials the developer has put together on the device. Soon I was able to understand things a lot better and cold see why things were laid out the way they were. Seriously, you won’t know what’s going on until you check out the videos.

So what’s so odd about things?

First of all, for an app that’s about music, you won’t find a lot of musical things on it. There are just a bunch of buttons with numbers on them… numbers? You see that’s where the designer had a method to his madness. If you’re in a certain key and want to play a song you have to know which notes to use. If you change the key you now have to remember different notes. But with Chordica you use a set of numbers for a song and if you change the key the numbers are the same. Pretty easy.

The layout is also set up into two halves. The left side handles the bass note of a chord while the right side is the entire chord. Quickly you’ll see that if you press the same button on both halves you’ll have a nice sound. Then you can tap back and forth through two buttons and you’ll have something even cooler.

Then it’s just about finding the right sequence of chords and you’re making music.

You can change keys easily and you can even change a few other settings giving you some nice options to play with, but as I said earlier, don’t expect the app to tell you how to do it. You’ll have to go to the videos to see how they work. I’m hoping they keep making them quickly because there are a few things I still don’t know exactly what they do. Plus it’s also cool to see how to do some actual songs.

The sound coming out of the little speaker is actually pretty good. It sounds like a piano and it sounds like you are hitting all the right keys (something I never do).

If you’re looking for something to serenade a loved one, or just annoy your friends and family by singing sappy songs to everything – and do it all without having any musical talent, this is the app for you.

Finally, something that hits all the right chords… or chordicas.

The Good

Easy to use
Good Sound
Different settings to give nice options
Video tutorials online

The Bad

Almost no instructions on the app.

More samples and tutorials can be found here

http://www.youtube.com/user/ChordicaRevolution

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Category: Games