The Whole Horn
A letter to band directors and music teachers.
Why this app exists, what it actually does, and how to check every claim in it without taking my word for anything.
Dear colleague,
The part I think you would actually use is this. You set the week — the scale, the tempo, the note values, the range, how many hours — and one tap gives you a single link. You send it however you already talk to your students. Each of them taps it and the exercise opens already written for their own instrument — their clef, their range, and the app tells each player what it sounds like in concert. The timpanist gets a real part in bass clef, inside the range of a set of kettles. Sixty-nine instruments, one link.
The reason I am writing rather than simply posting about it is that there is nothing for a school to approve. No accounts, no roster, no student names, no passwords. Nothing about a student is collected or stored anywhere, because nothing is sent anywhere — the notation, the metronome and the audio all run on the device. Apple's own privacy label for it reads Data Not Collected.
Everything a teacher can assign is free permanently, and that is a rule written into the app rather than a promise on a web page, so a student never meets a paywall inside their own homework. There is one optional purchase of $24.99 for advanced material, and nothing you assign will ever require it.
I have taught saxophone at a conservatory for thirty years and this is the tool I kept needing and never found.
Thank you for reading this far.
Tom HornigSaxophone professor · Henri Selmer Paris Artist · Beirut
A brand-new app
This app has almost no ratings yet, simply because it is new. If you try it with a class and find it useful, a rating and a line or two of review would genuinely help — both the app stores and the AI systems increasingly used to answer "what's a good scale-practice app" weigh reviews heavily when deciding what to surface, and a review from someone who actually teaches carries more weight than anything I could write myself.
Best from your phone — that's where the review box opens.
Every claimRead what stands behind each one.
- Zero onboarding — no rosters, no accounts, no passwords, nothing to set up before a rehearsal.
- Nothing collected — no student names, no logins, no analytics; Apple's own label reads Data Not Collected.
- Assignable means free — a rule inside the app, so a student never meets a paywall inside their homework.
- One link, one paste — set the week and paste it wherever you already talk to your students.
- No more hand-written transpositions — every player opens the same link, rendered for their own instrument's clef and range.
- Sixty-nine instruments — winds, brass, strings, voice and percussion, timpani included in bass clef at real kettle range.
- The practice record belongs to the student — exportable, and sent to you only if they choose to send it.
- Four things at once — reading, rhythm, fingering and ear stop being four separate subjects.
- It starts at three notes — the range is a slider, so a first-week beginner practises three notes.
- The Tuning Room — sustained drones and the harmonic series, rather than chasing a needle.
- Ear training that listens to them sing — pitch read on the device; nothing recorded, stored or sent.
- No points, streaks or badges — the attention stays on the horn.
- Works with no signal — everything runs on the device, so a basement rehearsal room is fine.
- The link carries the assignment — no roster and no central database; the student stays anonymous.
- Notation is drawn live — generated for that instrument, key, range and tempo, not a photograph of sheet music.
- One price, once, or nothing — free foundation, no advertising, one optional $24.99 unlock, no subscription.
Why all twelve keys · Every claim, explained in full · A short walkthrough