Playing a song

Leaf trombone is a musical instrument application with interesting online features. App store link

Playing the leaf trombone is technically easy: you hold your iPhone in front of your mouth and blow into the mic to produce the basic sound. If you don’t like blowing you can use the touch mode. You control the tune by moving the golden handle attached to the leaf. You can make squeezing sounds by dragging the handle or play clean notes by tabbing somewhere on the leaf.  The little green pegs mark the positions of notes. The plus and  minus buttons will shift the octave up and down. That’s basically it for the free play mode.

If you want to play a song you first have to choose one from different lists. On the play screen two additional elements will appear: a musicbox that will play background rhythms and small leaves that slowly approach the pegs. Play the note when the small leaf reaches the peg to perform the song.

On the world stage you can perform a song live to people who are willing to listen. They will judge your performance. To play on the world stage you need leaf tokens. For a start you get 4 tokens. You can earn more by judging other peoples performances.

Leaf trombone really works as an instrument and has a funny and original sound. It’s relatively easy to learn a song, because the small leaves will guide you – you don’t need to learn how to read notes. So if you have at least a little feeling for music you should try this!

App store link, lite version and developer link: Smule

Smule also did another instrument called Ocarina, a flute based on the famous video game “Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time!”

This guy is performing “When the Saints Go Marching In” with Leaf Trombone:

And this is a special about the creator: