Sight Reading

Sight Read Music Quiz is an app that will help you to either improve your ability to sight read music, or help you learn the process from the beginning. Any musician who does extensive studio work, or has aspirations of doing high-paying session jobs, will need to be able to play from sheet music in real time. This is referred to as sight reading and this app, or any of the other tutorial apps like it, will help you to get up to speed on your ability to play music as it is written.

Instrument Tuning

Most musicians have more than one instrument that they travel with. Guitarists have a bevy of guitars, sax players carry more than one horn and drummers always have a revolving selection of different drums to choose from. When you put your tuner in one of your cases and forget about it, then that will probably be the case that you leave at home when you head out for your next show. Your tablet is something that you never leave at home and that is why you should download the best tuning app you can find.

Recording and Mixing Music

A working musician is constantly working on new ideas and trying to develop his sound into something that will attract an audience. There are several apps you can use to record and mix your ideas into something that you can post to the Internet for you fans to hear. Wave Recorder is a basic recording app that allows you to use the inputs on your tablet to record quick ideas you have so that you can work on them later. Inspiration hits quickly and this app will allow you to get it recorded before you forget it.

Keeping Time

Any good musician knows that the only way to develop good timing is to practice with a metronome. While a metronome is not a large piece of equipment, it is something that is extremely delicate. You can download a metronome app to your tablet and practice along with it whenever and wherever you want. The great thing about a metronome app is that you can change the timing to the most complex rhythms available and practice along with them as well. A standard metronome would be limited in the range of timings it offers and the kinds of rhythms that it can replicate.

Online Lessons

The truly great musicians are always eager to learn something new and develop their talents even further. When you are within range of a WiFi connection, then your tablet turns into your own music instructor. Coursera is an educational website that offers classes from the Berklee College of Music that any musician can easily access with his tablet. There would no longer be any need to hunt down the best music teachers in your area because your tablet would put you in touch with the finest instructors in the entire world.

Learn a New Instrument

The art of playing music is not limited to one or two instruments. Just because a musician is known for playing one particular instrument does not mean that he is not able to play more. A musician's quest for knowledge is something that helps expand his knowledge base and improves his technique.

YouTube has literally thousands of tutorials on how to play almost any musical instrument known to man. If you are a musician that wants to become more versatile, then use your tablet to start learning how to play a new instrument. There are plenty of apps that you can use to turn your tablet into a piano. When you team up those apps with the YouTube videos, you should be playing a tune on the ivories in no time at all.

Organize Your Work

Most musicians are notorious for having ideas and material scattered all over their homes and their studios. An app like Evernote allows you to put all of your sheet music, recording snippets and written notes on one place where you can get at them whenever you want. Evernote also allows you to use any Android tablet to organize your work into files to make it easier to access and work on whenever you want.

Brush Up On Your Theory

A musician that wants to stay in demand is a musician that needs to keep up on his music theory. This is one kind of classroom learning that every serious musician should consider essential. When you are on the road or stuck in the studio for hours waiting to record, you should be brushing up on your theory and keeping your mind sharp.

Apps such as Musicopolous, the Music Theory Calculator and Music Theory Pro will put you through your paces with lessons and exercises designed to keep your mind sharp. If you want to be able to write sheet music that others will understand or be able to slide into a recording session and know what is going on, then you will need to learn music theory. As any musician will tell you, the pursuit of music theory is something that never ends.