Random Roots
It is the gateway to that skill that all creative musicians seek: the ability to play ideas that come to your mind.
HOW IT WORKS
You start with a musical idea: maybe a simple phrase you're working on… or one your teacher assigns you… or a single chord voicing on piano… or just a note or two.
Random Roots walks you through performing it in different keys. It throws a key at you… and another… and each time you hear and execute your idea in that key.
It can feed them to you automatically, accompanying you in time, and it keeps track of every exercise you’re working on, and which keys give you the most trouble for which exercise. It makes your practice time highly efficient and effective.
FEATURES
• SIMPLE TO GET STARTED
Use it right away. For free.
It has a guided tour and help built in.
• PLAY ALONG
The app plays the root of each key, using your choice of instrument sound.
• BUILD YOUR EARS
The app lets you imagine the sound of what you’re about to play. That not only trains your ability to hear, but builds connections in your mind between the sound of the music, the fingerings, and the music theory.
• CHOOSE YOUR KEYS
Practice every exercise in exactly the keys you're ready for.
• ORGANIZE YOUR PRACTICE
Efficient learning requires working on lots of separate tasks and revisiting them often. Random Roots organizes your tasks in nested folders and gives you instant access to the ones you're currently working on.
• CUSTOMIZE EACH EXERCISE
The app remembers your custom settings (keys, meter, tempo, form…) separately for each exercise and recalls them automatically.
• AUTOMATIC & MANUAL MODES
Have keys advance automatically in tempo… or whenever you’re ready, upon a tap of the screen… or a tap of your foot.
• FOCUS ON YOUR WEAK POINTS
Tell the app which keys you have more & less trouble with for a given exercise. Whenever you play that exercise the app will tailor the keys it shows you to optimize your progress.
• ALL KEYS EFFICIENTLY
Musicians traditionally practice all keys in the circle of fifths or chromatically. But those ways have serious drawbacks that impede learning. Random Roots gives you a more diverse & efficient workout.
• A SOURCE FOR IDEAS
The app comes with a number of sample exercises built in. You can download more online for free (coming soon) or create your own.
• USE YOUR FEET
Control the app with a bluetooth foot pedal to free up your hands. Works with foot pedals right out of the box.
• LEARN UNCOMMON KEY NAMES
Musicians reading transposed chord charts often have to deal with chords like D#m7 and CbMaj7. Random Roots helps you get familiar with uncommon root names if you like.
• CUSTOM SEQUENCES
Practice phrases over any chord sequence you like… ii-V-I's, tritone substitutions, backdoor turnarounds, Coltrane changes… or enter your own.
• BASED ON SCIENTIFIC RESULTS
Random Roots is designed from the ground up based on the science of efficient skill acquisition—principles such as the spacing effect, the testing effect, varied practice, context dependency and the generation effect. The author has extensive experience not only as an active musician and music educator, but as a former research scientist in skill acquisition.
• CLOUD SUPPORT
All your personalized exercises and settings are automatically backed up to iCloud so that if you lose your phone you won't miss a beat.
SUBSCRIPTION PRICING & TERMS
Use Random Roots for free as long as you want. You’ll get the full experience, but limited to half the available keys.
Platform: iOS
Cost: Free
