Trombonophone

Trombonophone turns your phone into the slide of a trombone. Hold it in front of you with the screen facing you. Push it away and the pitch drops. Pull it back and the pitch rises, just like a slide. Open your mouth and it plays. Close it and it stops. The front camera measures how far the phone is from your face, and that distance becomes the slide. There is nothing to blow into and nothing to plug in. FREE, AND YOURS TO KEEP • The slide: all seven positions, from 1st, close to your face, to 7th, at arm's length. • Your mouth: open it to play, close it to stop. Or hold the pad on the screen instead. • Seven partials, B♭2 up to B♭4, chosen with your thumb. • A buzzy brass tone, rich in harmonics. • The name of every note you play. • A three-step guide that fits the slide to your arm the first time you open the app. THE FULL INSTRUMENT One purchase, once, adds the rest: • Wah: brass that speaks. Your mouth works like a plunger mute, so mouthing "wah" says it. Slide out a position on each one and you have the sad trombone. • Pure: a single sine wave, for hearing the pitch and nothing else. The low notes are best on headphones. • Lips: let your mouth choose the partial, the way a brass player's lips do. A small opening for the high notes, a wide one for the low. No hands. • Assist and Snap: help with intonation. Assist draws you gently toward each position. Snap lands on it exactly. • The staff: every note written on a bass staff as you play it, ledger lines and all, with how many cents sharp or flat you are. • Solfège: note names as Do, Re, Mi in place of C, D, E. The app picks the one used where you live, and you can change it at any time. GOOD TO KNOW • Face tracking runs on your device. • No account, no ads, no subscription. • The range is E2 to B♭4, two and a half octaves. • For iPhone and iPad, held upright. • Works best in good light, with your face in view of the front camera. Trombonophone is an instrument of its own, not a recording of one. The sound is made in the app as you play.

Talk to the trombone: tap the microphone, say something, and it says it back. Feel each slide position land.