Wonder Warp Software have announced the immediate availability of Etude 1.0, a new iPhone and iPod touch application for learning music on the piano. Etude combines traditional sheet music with an on-screen keyboard, whose keys light up to reveal which notes are being played, as well as a MIDI synthesizer that simultaneously plays the piece aloud.
"Our goal was to significantly improve the way musicians discover and learn to play sheet music," stated Dan Grover, founder of Wonder Warp Software. "The iPhone, and soon the iPad, make this possible. Unlike other music apps, Etude let's the user choose from a large catalog of songs, hear and see how the song should be played, and of course view a version of the score created just for their device."
Etude ships with 5 songs loaded, and an in-app "store" with over 200 free songs. New songs are being added weekly. Wonder Warp Software is actively working with music publishers to vastly expand the music catalog. The store currently features songs ranging from Moonlight Sonata, to nursery rhymes like The Itsy Bitsy Spider.
While learning a piece of music may be difficult at its original speed, built into Etude is a music settings panel, which controls the playback speed, auto-scrolling, and showing or hiding the keyboard on-screen. Etude directly integrates with social networking sites Facebook and Twitter, making the music available to all of your friends to listen to.
Pricing and Availability: Etude 1.0 is $2.99 (USD) and available worldwide exclusively through the App Store in the Music category. Wonder Warp Software is also working on an iPad version of Etude, which will be available shortly after the launch of the Apple iPad.