The Beethoven of tomorrow may learn to play piano on an app.
Corridor, founded by McNally Smith College of Music professors and professional musicians Jay Fuchs and Dan Musselman, aims to improve your musical abilities via smartphone. It's an interactive, game-based music theory, ear training and keyboard program that can be accessed via smartphone or tablet.
Their goal is to make learning music skills simple and direct for beginners and advanced players alike.
“Instead of being thrown into this sea of musical terms and possibilities, we say hey, this is where you can start and this is your path toward building your musical knowledge,” said Musselman.
The musicians-turned-entrepreneurs took inspiration from the popular language app Duolingo (which has 100 million users as of 2015), to develop Corridor. Users watch a one to two minute video then complete a game based off the content they just learned. At every 10 question interval, users get points and stars based off how well they performed.
The curriculum is based off American Pop Academy, a series of music theory and ear training textbooks developed by Fuchs and Musselman, which they launched last summer, and lessons range from complete beginner to advanced college-level classes.
The app is currently available for piano, and users can either play via keys on the screen, their computer keyboard, or an electric keyboard plugged into the phone via an MIDI chord. They’re also developing a program for guitar, and are looking into violin, viola and cello. An instrument needs to be visually linear for it to work with their current platform, however, Musselman said.
“Whereas if you’re playing trumpet, you’ve got three buttons to press that can combine to make a hundred different notes,” he said. “There isn’t that same visual component to it.”
The app has tiered pricing, starting with a free version supplemented by ads, and a subscription version ($2.99 per month) that does away with ads. The founders are also targeting music teachers with paid teacher accounts that come with ad-free versions for students (starting at $7.99 per month for up to 40 students, and capping out at $24.99 per month for up to 300 students). They’re bootstrapped to date, and Musselman said they’re making some revenue, though he expects that to grow as they onboard more users. Corridor was just named a semifinalist in the Minnesota Cup startup competition.
Since launching in January, they’ve grown to approximately 1000 users and they’ll be going to music teacher conventions in the near future to recruit more users. But user retention has been particularly high so far Musselman noted: The average user spends 15 minutes on Corridor at a time.
“The big thing that makes Corridor so effective unlike a traditional school environment is that you get that instantaneous feedback,” he said. “With Corridor, if you get it wrong you’re told what the right answer is and how to get it right next time.”
This aside, one big question will determine whether Corridor catches on: Does it work?
Anecdotally, it appears yes. Musselman pointed to a recent demo with a few piano novices at a Beta.MN showcase.
“Within 2 minutes they had learned all the notes on the keyboard and gotten three stars on the first level and were already advancing to the next level,” he said.
