Mallet Coach · iPhone & iPad · Coming soon

Scales, arpeggios and chords. Every note graded.

Mallet Coach is a practice partner for marimba, vibes and xylophone players. Play on a MalletKat, a Malletstation or an acoustic marimba, and every note is marked on the staff: the right bar or the wrong one, on time or not — and for four-mallet chords, how close together the mallets land.

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Coming soon to the App Store for iPhone and iPad.

Features

Every exercise, in every key.

Exercises are built from the scale, the pattern, the key and your instrument’s range, so everything comes in all 12 keys and always fits the bars you have.

Scales

Major, the three minors, the modes, pentatonics, chromatic and whole-tone. Straight, or in 3rds, 4ths, 5ths, 6ths and octaves, in groups, and as double stops.

Arpeggios

Triads and 7th chords in every inversion, through the keys by the circle of 4ths or 5ths, chromatically, or at random.

Four-mallet strokes

Block chords and the Stevens stroke types — single independent, single alternating, double vertical, double lateral, interval changes — with mallets 1 to 4 over the notes.

Progressions

ii–V–I, I–vi–ii–V, I–IV–V–I and I–vi–IV–V, voice-led for the least mallet movement, in 7th chords or triads.

Polyrhythms

Sixteen polyrhythms between the hands over the chords, from 3 against 2 to 5 against 7, on two staves.

Every note graded

Green is the right note on time, amber early or late, and red a wrong note, with the note you did play shown beside it. Chords are scored on spread, and velocity by mallet finds a weak inner mallet.

Rolls graded

Rolled notes are measured for speed in strokes a second, evenness, and how long the roll is held.

Your controller or the microphone

A MalletKat, Malletstation or other MIDI controller, with bar sounds played through, or an acoustic marimba or xylophone heard by the microphone. Set the range once and the keyboard on screen matches.

Built for practice

A metronome with subdivisions and a full click mix, a count-in, Hear the exercise, tempo build-ups, and “Speed up when I’m ready.” Treble, bass or grand staff.

Around the practice

Everything around the bars.

Find the weak spots, keep the streak, and bring your students along.

Progress

Wrong and missed notes lit on your keyboard, your worst spots in words, and accuracy by key.

Journal

Today, this week, your streak, a calendar of the days you played, and every session by day.

Favorites and warm-up

Line up the exercises you play every day and run them as a warm-up, a few passes each.

Pattern editor

Write your own lines and chords, or play them in from the instrument.

Share with students

Send an exercise or an assignment with a goal tempo and due date; results come back by student.

iCloud sync

Exercises, favorites, history and your instrument follow you between iPhone and iPad.

Game Center

Leaderboards and achievements.

Game Center is optional: turn it on in Settings, or leave it off and practice on your own.

Leaderboards

Notes a minute

Major scales

Fastest clean major scale, in notes a minute.

Notes a minute

Minor scales

Fastest clean minor scale (natural, harmonic or melodic), in notes a minute.

Notes a minute

Scales in 3rds

Fastest clean scale in 3rds, in notes a minute.

Notes a minute

Arpeggios

Fastest clean arpeggio, in notes a minute.

Chords a minute

Block chords

Fastest clean block chords, in chords a minute.

ms · lower is better

Tightest chords

Smallest average chord spread on clean block chords at a chord a second or faster, in ms. Lower is better.

A pass counts when it scores 90 or more with nothing missed, on a built-in exercise. Scales and arpeggios must cover two octaves. Your own exercises aren’t ranked.