Being in Voice

Here is the latest review to pop on iTunes for the Being in Voice warmup app:

Fantastic, well explained, fun to use ★★★★ by superhevs – Version 1.03 – Jul 27, 2013

My partner and I went through the mini vocal warm up together while making breakfast. It certainly relaxed us both, noticeably improved our voices and made us laugh. If there is one thing I would suggest to improve the app, it would be visual references. Having an illustration or photo to check against as you complete the exercises would be helpful especially if the user is new to these sort of exercises.The Capital Yoga apps I feel have achieved this well and maybe a useful reference.

I love it when I get suggestions from people who have used the app.  Version 1 inspired one of its users to suggest I should include a “How to use this app” page, so I did.  I also added an extra, bonus warmup, the Humming Warmup, which is one of my all time favourites.  I learnt it at a workshop in Scotland in 1990, from a Hungarian theatre director whose name escapes me now, but in the best Eastern European tradition, he was deeply committed to the all-in-one approach to actor training and preparation for performance.

As for including some visual references, I can see how these would be useful for the Stand Easy and Breathe Easy sections. I looked at the Capital Yoga apps suggested in the review, and their visuals are indeed very clear and helpful.

This is not something I could organise at short notice, but I could very quickly and easily produce  some stick figure images, such as these below, demonstrating the stretches that I include in my Mega Full-On Warmup (not yet in the app!)

I can see that the Humming Warmup would also benefit from the inclusions of some visuals, even a video demonstration.  The problem with this is that is makes the App a very large file to download, and I’d rather keep it smaller and easier to work with for the moment, until I can afford to get some whizz-bang developer/designer to figure out how to keep the audio and video files small and easily accessible.  So I am thinking of putting a video demo of the warmup on the website, here, and just adding in a link inside the app.

What do you think?  Stick figures? Or photos? Video in the app? – which would definitely cost more, and make the price go up, or link to video on the website? Give me your thoughts here, in the comments. Let’s work together to make this the coolest, most fun, most do-able warmup app ever.