SO years ago I discovered iRealPro. It is an app which can play midi arrangements of jazz tunes, and display chord charts as well as play the arrangements. When I downloaded it, I was happy to see that the app was mostly navicable. I could download and install their lists of tunes and easily play any of them, adjusting tempo etc. However, one huge problem remained: the chord chart was completely inaccessible. So those who need to work on their jazz ear, like myself, had a real problem learning tunes this way.
Recently, I heard of another app called Quartet, which according to the YouTube vids, sounded much better than iRealPro because, similar to band-in-a-box, it used phrases played by real musicians on real instruments to construct the arrangements. So I downloaded it, and it did sound a huge amount better. However, unlike iRealPro, the app is far less navicable. Unlike iRealPro, at least since the last I I checked, the chord chart was somewhat readable, albeit awkwardly. There were no bar designations, just a string of chord symbols numbered 1, 2, 3, etc, where the numbers corresponded to individual chords rather than actual musical bar numbers.
The other weirdness is that although the app seemed to play the tunes in it's library fine when I downloaded it, it now stops after about 5 or 6 bars and fades out. Oh well, I thought, one more inaccessible app!
However, when I went looking on the web to see if others had encountered this app and had any accessibility suggestions, I found a video which showed how iRealPro's chord chart could be read via VoiceOver. So of course I immediately gave it a try, and to my surprise, it read very well. It even offered to read the chart via numbers (i.e. 1 minor 6, 2 minor 7, 5 7), or via note names.
So I wrote to the quartet app team again and suggested they take a look at their closest competitor iRealPro to see how it reads the chord chart. Maybe it will show them that accessibility is possible and inspire them to make quartet more accessible in the future.
If others are interested, give quartet a listen, and write to their team at [email protected] to encourage them to make the app accessible.
Comments
I tried Quartet and
Hi,
I tried Quartet volume 1 2 years ago, including contacting the developer. While a song could be played, it was impossible to change keys even though there were buttons to do so. They simply did not respond when VoiceOver was on.
Unfortunately, while the dev initially seemed interested in feedback, after I sent him a report, he did not respond.
I am a jazz player as well, I play a Wind Controller and would love as many backing tracks as possible. To learn melodies, I just look up the original song on Youtube, primarily in the original key, original composer ETC. Learn the melody that way than play along with backing tracks.
Do you feel iReal Pro is worth the purchase? Can you at least change keys/tempo and export your changed song so it can be loaded on something like a VR stream?
Thanks!
iRealPro Accessibility
iRealPro allows you to easily change tempo, key, and count in, but I can't see a way of exporting either audio or midi.
There is one weirdness about navigation though: in order to change these things, you need to click the "mixer" button on the bottom of the screen. When you do this, info appears *before* the button you just clicked. The info is added down the right hand side of the screen, so to find the beginning of the newly added set of controls, you need to explore by touch starting at the top and move down the right hand edge of the screen. You can continuously swipe left from the mixer button, but then you have to work your way back through all the mixer controls; quicker to explore by touch as described above.
-- Hope this helps, Rich
Re: Wind controller.
Not to hijack the thread, but which one do you play? I've been kicking around the idea of getting one but of course, there's accessibility, of both hardware and software, so the research is quite the undertaking. Be nice to at least have one to look into that I know is successfully being used by somebody, even if I end up with something else or not getting one at all.