Inspiration
I love playing music, and I love listening to it. I play the piano/keyboard, as well as the electric guitar. Although I spend a lot of time around music, my musical ear is kind of subpar. I always wanted an app on my phone to help me with that, but I couldn't ever really find anything like that. Finally, I decided, with all of this time on my hands, I would make an app to help myself and other musicians.
What it does
There are four major sections to my App: an interval identifying practice, a note (perfect pitch) identifying practice, chord type identifying, and a music theory learning page. You can toggle which notes, intervals, or chords you want to be in the testing pool.
How we built it
I had to learn and use Android Studio through Java. I installed Android Studio on my MacBook as well as an emulator to test.
Challenges we ran into
Focus was a bit of an issue for me. Since I did this alone, I didn't have someone to motivate me. I had some issues making sure my ids were distinct. In some cases, when I would duplicate elements, they would end up having the same id, and attempting to change one element's id would change both, making for an annoying experience. The design aspect of Android Studio was extremely bewildering and confusing at first, but I managed to get it down. Also, for the chords part, on the emulators, the chords would play extremely disconnected, which I thought was my fault, but installing the application on my phone would rectify the issue. I was glad at the very least to use Java, which I am very familiar with, to make the application. That made learning the library easier.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
I had never used Android Studio before, and I'm proud that I was able to make a useful, functional app in just a day and a half. I learned the visual aspect of it, and how to align everything on the screen as I was visualizing it in my mind. I was able to get the sound working efficiently and not make it clunky (if you know what I mean). I had never made something that I would realistically use, but thanks to the time spent at this hackathon I actually have now!
What we learned
I learned how to use Android Studio. I kind of stumbled upon this once the competition started, and I was worried I wouldn't be able to learn it fast enough, but I managed to get it done! I was never super experienced with UI design in programming, but now I have some experience in app making.
What's next for Pitch Perfection
I'm thinking of adding Perfect Chords, where you identify major/minor chords and their roots. Another thing to add could be scale type identification. I'm also planning to add a note identification functionality, where it will hear your microphone and identify what note it's closest to, and if it's too flat or sharp and by what amount. I think it could be effective for singers trying to perfect their pitch. Now that I know Android Studio, I can improve its UI and make it more appealing. I'd like to post it on Google Play or something like that, I haven't researched that yet, but I think my app is semi-useful and I for sure will be using it.
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