People often ask why our books are only available on iBooks and this was also the first question we had to answer when developing the Tuniversity method of teaching music. In a perfect world, we’d be able to share these techniques to learn music with everyone. We’re hopeful that other platforms continue to evolve but at this time, there is no better way to teach music and production than on iOS.
Why is iOS the best solution?
There is nothing about iOS as a platform that makes it more capable than others. It’s the fact that Apple has invested heavily into their software titles on iOS. Most notably for us: GarageBand and iBooks Author. Side note: I remember the days when this wasn’t the case. There were so many people that wouldn’t switch to Mac because the titles were so limited in comparison to a Windows based PC. The opposite is true here!
What about GarageBand makes it so special for teaching music?
GarageBand is a total game changer. We wish you didn’t have to have an iPad to be able to learn what we teach but the bottom line is that you need an instrument to play. We feel GarageBand has evolved beyond being a piece of software used to record music. It has in many ways become the actual instrument, while growing its recording abilities along the way. If you have never used GarageBand, or haven’t looked at it in a bit, you owe it to yourself to give it a serious look.
For us GarageBand and the iPad make it so we can teach people music and show them how to record their own version of hit songs with just an iOS device. While teaching recording concepts that will help you on any platform later.
What makes iBooks the ideal publishing platform?
iBooks is literally a white sheet of paper. You can do anything with it. When we first started I remember thinking it would be super cool if we could trigger some sound files and stretch them to simulate modifying the tempo. In the end we have a functioning keyboard that teaches you how to play parts of songs. The only other platform that lets you build the things we did, is to publish it on the web. We definitely considered the web but then we ran into the lack of having an instrument/recording platform that was viable.
So ultimately, we’d love to be able to provide this training to everyone. We just need to wait on the other platforms to catch up to Apple when it comes to music creation software.