开发者

Yasuhiro Sekine

• 系统工程师
• 音乐应用开发者
• 业余大提琴爱好者
• based in Tokyo

Favorite Musicians

• Cellist: Janos Starker
• Singers: Natalie Dessay, Sabine Devieilhe
• Composers: Gabriel Fauré, Fanny Mendelssohn
• Jazz: John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Ornette Coleman, Duke Pearson
• Band: My Bloody Valentine, Polvo

How This App Came to Be

I had been playing guitar since childhood, but I never read sheet music — everything was by ear. Through My Bloody Valentine, Polvo, and Mogwai, I got into post-rock, which eventually led me to jazz. Knowing nothing about it, I listened to about 100 acclaimed albums in chronological order, teaching myself the history, improvisation, and modern jazz theory along the way.

In 2014, I was blown away by Kodály's Solo Cello Sonata on Alisa Weilerstein's album 'Solo,' and started taking cello lessons. In my lessons, I initially read the score to check positions, but as muscle memory took over, I gradually stopped looking at the sheet music.

The problem came when I was working through Bach's Cello Suites. By the time I reached Suite No. 4, I realized I could no longer play Suites No. 1 or 2. Memorizing everything was simply impossible, and I knew I had to learn to play while reading the score.

I bought a solfege textbook and started practicing sight-singing, but hit two walls: the melodies were boring, and there was no way to immediately check if I was singing the right notes. Then I discovered vocal synthesis technology. "What if I could make it sing do-re-mi?" I tried recreating Bach's Cello Suites with synthesized vocals, and it was surprisingly fun to listen to. I thought others might want this too, and decided to turn it into an app.

In 2019, I released Singalong Solfege.