Introducing Carnatic Music Tools
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I am learning Carnatic music. With a real teacher, but the class is online.
It is going well. Slowly. Music is patient like that.
But practice has been a mess. I keep a metronome open in one tab for the tala. A tuner app on my phone to check the swara. A notes file somewhere else. I am always switching between them and losing my place.
The free apps also have ads. I do not blame the people who made them — they have to eat too. But an ad popping up in the middle of a varisai is the opposite of focus.
So I built my own. Carnatic Music Tools is a small browser site with the two things I use every day:
- Metronome — knows the Carnatic talas. Adi, Rupaka, Chapus, Triputa, Jhampa, Ata, Eka. You can change the BPM and the gati (3, 4, 5, 7, 9). Sam, claps, counts, and waves are all accented differently so you can hear where you are in the cycle.
- Tuner — listens through the mic and tells you the swara in real time. Sa defaults to E5 because that is my flute. You can change the Sa reference in settings if yours is different.
That is the whole site. Two pages. No login. No tracking. No ads. Ever.
It is the tool I wished I had when I started. If it helps even one other person stop juggling tabs during practice, that is enough.