Singing+Fingers

Singing Fingers is an app for iOS (iPads, iPhones) that lets you record sound while you draw, then playback that sound as you trace back over the drawing you made. Although it is incredibly simple to use (Kindergarten students would EASILY be able to figure it out), there are still so many uses for all grade levels this seemingly simple app. NOTE: This app costs $0.99 in the App Store.

Getting started with Singing Fingers Uses for Music Class
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Getting Started with Singing Fingers
As stated earlier and demonstrated in the video above, Singing Fingers is incredibly easy to use. The app records the drawing and sound simultaneously, so the sound you made at one part of the drawing will not sound the same at another point in the drawing if you were making a different sound when you drew that part. You can save your final drawing/recording as a file within the app. Here are some tips from the Singing Fingers website:

You can just go ahead and use Singing Fingers without any detailed instruction. But if you get stuck, or just want to fine tune your expertise, see this small list of tips:


 * Start on white and smear your finger around while making noise to record
 * If you start with your finger on a color it won't go into record mode. But once you start on white you can record over other drawings as long as you're making enough noise to power the brush.
 * Start on colors and move your finger to play back and remix the audio
 * If you start on white instead of color it might record over your sound-drawing. This happens sometimes when you want to swipe across a line of color, but you start too early behind the color. Once you've started on the color you can go anywhere and keep playing back, with as many fingers as you like (up to 5).
 * Be aware of where the microphone is
 * On the iPad it's on the top left right next to the headphone jack. On the iPhone it's on the bottom. Try talking right into the mic (while drawing), or try holding your mouth far away. Notice the difference.
 * Loud sounds give a bigger brush, and often also more saturated colors
 * Quiet sounds on the other hand give a smaller brush, and since quiet also means there will be more noise, sometimes quieter sounds are less saturated. You can change the color of the brush by singing in a different pitch.
 * Don't hold your finger still when recording sounds you'd like to play back later
 * The problem is you'll be recording over and over your own recording if you hold your finger in just one place. It's typically better to smear the recording across the screen instead of holding your finger still. That is, if you want to be able to play the sounds back out. There are some exceptions to this rule, like if you're trying to find a certain color before you start drawing, or if you just want to draw dots. But the common mistake is to hold in one place and make a whole sound, then when you go to play it back it only sounds like one little bleep because you've recorded over most of it.

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Uses for Music Class

 * Melodic Direction - draw either a vertical or diagonal line from the bottom to the top while you sing an upward vocalise or play an upward melody on a melodic instrument, or make a zig-zag/wiggle and match the shape to the sound
 * Solfege - draw the first letter of each solfege note while you sing the corresponding pitch, go back and use it as an interactive singing instrument
 * Sound Stories - draw pictures of different sound effects while recording a corresponding sound, e.g. bird tweet with a drawing of a bird, cat meow with a drawing of a cat
 * Staccato/legato - draw long lines and dots, go back and play long sounds and short sounds
 * Harmony - record harmonizing pitches one pitch at a time on stacked horizontal lines, go back and touch more than one line at a time to build chords
 * Timbre - record different instrument sounds on various shapes and have students go back to play and guess the instrument sound
 * Rhythm syllables - draw the shape of the note while saying its name, go back and trace the shape to practice saying the rhythm or even perform a rhythm

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