Tablet Insight: Tablets Face the Music

Music’s digital life is still young. Only since the beginning of the 1990s CD revolution have we seen music become easier to share, find, listen and make.

iPods and Mp3 players gave us our entire music collection in our hand. Now tablets are giving us the chance to make and explore our own music. For fun or for professionals, there is a new road ahead.

First, let’s take a look at a few apps that have lead the way in making music on your tablet. Have you ever wanted to learn piano but didn't have time? Well, with the iPad app Etude you can easily begin to learn finger positions and even how to read music—an excellent choice for the young learner or someone re-learning piano. A folding tablet case is recommended to use while at your piano.

If you’re just interested in playing around with music but have no musical training, then the SoundPrism app is for you. Its an intuitive virtual synthesizer that changes the normal approach of melody and harmony. The right case for this can be many, but since you will be using both hands, I’d suggest looking for a tablet stand case that has a comfortable typing angle.


Watch Soundprism app in action

For the music buff that likes to show off obscure knowledge of music scenes, the iPad app eMusic Scene will offer to learn even more about the history of nearly any music—from Athens, Georgia college rock in the 1980s to Amsterdam Avant-garde. The app is easy to use, free and its very fascinating. Make sure you have a tablet case that doesn’t cover your speaker grill so you can rock out while telling your friends all about the band.

But it is not only apps that are paving the way for mobile music making. New iPad compatible studio-quality mics are also under construction, like the MiC by Apogee. Microphones like these, which I’m sure we’ll see more and more of, make the bedroom studio already a thing of the past.

Plus, Apogee makes a ¼ inch adaptor (the size for guitar cables) to the iPad’s 30-pin dock connector. This compatibility between digital and analogue is truly incredible and simple, especially when combined with user-friendly Apple software like Garage Band.


How to plug your guitar into iPad

Apple has dominated music in the tablet world, particularly because of their iTunes store (which, if you are an indie musician, can be a difficult thing to get your music on to). Today Google Music opened for US residents. It offers users an online store, a place to share music and free storage space for music (known as the "locker room"). It is still too early to see where this will go and how it will change online music interaction, but no doubt, Google will have something innovative up its sleeve (real-time jam sessions? Concert streaming?). More on this news at AllThingsD.

Ali G once asked Donald Trump what was the most popular thing in the world, Trump quickly responded: music. Indeed, the real estate mogul couldn’t have given a better answer. Now, the tablet revolution is bringing studio-like music making to wherever you are going. Make sure you have the right case to suit your sounds!

Tablet Insight is a weekly column by Thomas Andersen that focuses on the innovative tablet uses and considers what is the most compatible and necessary tablet case.