Tonara: Digital Sheet Music That Actually Listens To You Play

Wandering
the halls of SF MusicTech on Tuesday, I met dozens of music startups that aim
to improve user experience, discovery, distribution or anything else that
might aid in what happens after music
is created. Which is why it was such a breath of fresh air to
meet Yair Lavi, CEO and Founder of Tonara. Lavi and his team have developed an interactive music app that actually “listens” to musicians as they read
and perform pieces of sheet music, while also offering a marketplace for digital
sheet music. In doing so, Tonara has effectively modernized the very tradition
of playing a piece of music from written notation.

Sheet
music, while tremendously beneficial in terms of musical arrangement and
playback ability, has its limitations. While playing a piece, it can oftentimes
be difficult to find and/or remember your place in the song; not to mention the
physical act of turning the pages in the middle of playing your instrument. It can also often
be very hard to find a specific piece of sheet music that you’re looking for.

Tonara
solves these problems by offering an app that displays your sheet music, listens
to which notes you’re actually playing, and automatically turns the page at
exactly the moment you need it to – all while offering a built-in marketplace
of sheet music from a multitude of genres, styles, composers and instruments.

Click images to enlarge:

“We started Tonara with the idea that the way people learn, practice and play music will change considerably with the rise of tablet technologies and new music distribution channels,” said Yair Lavi, CEO and Founder of Tonara.

Lavi
was kind enough to demo the Tonara app for me on his iPad, which he tells me is
the only version out right now due to their favoritism towards the iPad’s
hyper-intuitive design and functionality. The app supports polyphonic note
recognition and can adjust for variables like tempo and missed notes. It can also
somehow filter out ambient noise from the playing surroundings and can remain
functional even for one specific instrument in a room with several others.

In
addition to musicians being able to view their exact position in a score and go
worry-free about turning pages, they can also receive real-time tempo feedback
on their performance – which is great for those practicing or still learning. Tonara’s sheet music store features a rather wide selection of music and includes pieces for piano, violin, cello, flute and voice (plans to support additional instruments are expected as the user base grows).

A few months back in July, Tonara received $4 million in Series A funding led by Carmel
Ventures, with follow-on investment from existing seed investors including
Index Ventures, Lool Ventures, Eilon Tirosh, Rami Lipman and other prominent
angel participants. The company says they will invest in ongoing technology innovation,
secure additional partnerships with sheet music publishers, and pursue
strategic marketing initiatives.

Tonara
is currently available as an iPad App on Apple’s AppStore. Users can access a
selection of music scores free of charge, and purchase additional scores for
$0.99 to $2.99 directly within the app.

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