AUv3 instrument for iPad
Shofar Tones plays the shofar: all five calls of Rosh Hashanah, and every note in between, in time with your song. Press a call, blow it by hand, play it in a prayer mode, or build a pattern, then sound it in a stone courtyard or a cathedral.
What is a shofar?
A shofar is a ram's horn, hollowed out and blown like a trumpet with no mouthpiece. It plays only a few notes, and the player's lips leap between them. Jews have sounded it for thousands of years: it's heard at Sinai and at the walls of Jericho in the Bible, and every year on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and as Yom Kippur ends.
On Rosh Hashanah it's blown in a handful of calls, again and again. Here they are, played by Shofar Tones itself.
One long, whole blast: a moment on the low note, then up.
Three broken sounds, each low then high, like sighing.
Nine short blasts on one note, like crying.
The great tekiah, held as long as the breath allows.
The broken sounds, then the blasts, in one breath.
Recorded straight from the app, in its Sanctuary.
The calls
Each call has its own button and its own key on your MIDI keyboard. Hold tekiah gedolah and the great note lasts as long as your finger does.
Play it by hand
The blow pad is your lips and breath. Touch and hold to blow, slide up to leap, move right to blow harder. How fast you move picks the leap: slowly slides, normally breaks, a flick cracks. Tap a second finger to tongue the note. Or play the keys: press near the front edge to blow harder, slide along a key for vibrato that deepens the further you go, slide sideways to glide.
Break, slide, crack
When a shofar leaps, the low note bends sharp, the sound loses its pitch for a moment, and the high note lands a little flat before it settles. Shofar Tones does each of those. Set how rough a break is, how slow a slide, how big a crack, and watch the pitch in Key articulation as it plays.
Scales
Scale sets what the pad and the keys play. Horn keeps the shofar's own three notes. Nusach plays Ahavah Rabbah, Magen Avot or Adonai Malach on any home note; Key plays major or minor. In a scale, the keyboard becomes one named key per note of it, so every key you touch belongs. Free plays any pitch at all.
Sequencer
Lay calls and notes on a grid of 8 to 64 steps. Every step can have its own leap, a roll of quick blasts, a chance of playing, its own lips and its own breath. In a music app the pattern follows the song, so it stays locked when the song loops or jumps.
Places
Seven places, from right beside the horn to a cathedral. Five are recordings of how real spaces answer a sound: a church sanctuary in Nashville, a stone courtyard and a cathedral in York, a limestone gorge and a valley in England. The canyon, plaza and mountainside echo, and their echoes can land on the beat.
MIDI keys and controllers
See your whole keyboard: the calls in gold, the keyswitches in blue, the horn's own notes dotted. Press a key and it lights up with what it does. Move any call or keyswitch with a tap.
Shofar Tones is an Audio Unit instrument. Add it to a track in GarageBand, Logic Pro for iPad, Cubasis or Loopy Pro, or a channel in AUM, and play it from the screen or a MIDI keyboard. Its main controls show among your music app's own, and everything is saved with your song. Or just open the app and play.
