Loop Me, Pachelbel!

I am convinced that within a few years, making music with loops will have a permanent place in our teaching arsenal. The advantages are obvious, alongside the constant repetition of beautiful music, the desire to be creative, to invent and to improvise is awakened, and continues to grow the more you loop. I also notice again and again how even beginners get into the flow when using loop apps, such as Loopy HD, and the patterns they train with their pieces are very easily consolidated.

My 12-year-old trumpet student Felix worked on the D major scale and all its pitfalls using a Loop-App, and in less than 20 minutes, beaming from ear to ear, he showed that he could work very confidently in this key.

But Felix could just as easily be a saxophone, violin or piano student! We can transfer the knowledge of Loop-Apps to making music with any instrument or voice. It is important that we know and understand the basic principle of Loop-Apps, and dare to experiment.

With a Loop-App, a certain number of bars can be recorded, which repeat continuously, immediately after recording, hence the name loop. With Felix, I set the app to four bars. All sections or loops that were recorded were now four bars long. I also chose a tempo that he could handle easily. If desired, the app not only plays a metronome, but also offers a drum accompaniment, so it sounds a lot more like a band concert than a simple exercise.

Felix heard the drumbeat through his headphones, and played the four bars that I developed for him from his scale. They look like this:

I use the Loopy HD App for my lessons. Although it is a paid app, it is the market leader and the undisputed star among Loop-Apps. There are however no in-app purchases, this is very important, so that the students’ parents have transparency about the costs right from the start, and do not get a shock if their child unintentionally takes out a paid subscription. Another plus for Loopy HD for me is that it runs on both Apple and Android devices, and I only have to get used to the functions of a single app.

Another advantage is that it is also possible to use the Loop-App without a tablet. Even a mobile phone with a small display is enough to get going. It is however important that you use headphones when working with Loop-Apps, otherwise the previously recorded loops will be recorded over and over again, and you will not get a clear recording to loop.

As a little bonus, I've written some short pieces you can use when testing a loop app:

I hope that you too will discover the power that Loop-Apps unleash when you use them in your lessons, and that your students will be enthusiastic and throw themselves into looping scales, etudes and exercises with bright eyes and bushy tails.