Recording and synthesizer apps aren’t the only options in the musical arena. Tablets have inspired an entirely new type of musical app, and Chordion is an excellent, visually sophisticated example of this app genre. It's a creative tool that makes it easy to try out different musical shades and chord structures, and while a foundation of musical theory is useful in getting the most out of this app, it’s not absolutely necessary.
The main idea behind Chordion is that you essentially use your left hand to trigger chord changes while “strumming” accompaniment with your right hand, which keeps the whole shebang harmonically in lockstep so that your strumming sounds are in tune with the underlying root chord. As you select a new chord, the entire color scheme of the interface changes to reflect the current chord, a nice visual cue to keep track of what you’re playing. The app offers a tremendous degree of customization – it’s really easy to arrange the chord buttons on the screen in the order you want them, and this is where you might find that basic music theory understanding will help you get the most from this app.
On the right side of the screen, you’ll find a column of trigger squares that might initially be mistaken for a classical musical keyboard – think of a harp with programmable strings and you’ll get the general idea – and there's an extensive degree of customization of the “strings”, including a classical western-scale piano keyboard. There's also a nice little arpeggiator and beatbox, making it easy to quickly create pleasing rhythmic beats that are perfectly synched to triggered notes. The end result is that Chordion is a great tool for quickly cooking up musical ideas, with a particular emphasis on electronic, dance, pop, and rock tunes. It's perhaps a little less useful for jazz or classical composition, as a result.
The built-in synthesis engine is serviceable but basic, and you can use Chordion with other iOS synthesizers that support MIDI-in for dramatically expanding the tonal options and creative possibilities of realtime, live performance. We had great success triggering one synth (Sunrizer) with the chord buttons set to MIDI channel 1, and with the right-hand strummer set to MIDI 2, driving yet another open synth app (Animoog). Amazing!
The bottom line. It’s not the end-all of musical composition apps, but for just a few bucks, you’re likely to find some real creative inspiration in Chordion.
iPad running iOS 5.1 or later
Fun compositional tool. Extensive selection and flexibility of chord arrangements. Can simultaneously drive multiple external synth apps.
Requires musical theory knowledge for optimum use.
