I was just thinking, the reference pitches on the Bachido website have been a HUGE help for helping me tune my Shamisen. I’ve been thinking, woulden’t it be great to have that as an iphone app? Or app in general? I am guessing there are already apps for tuning instruments (I haven’t checked yet, hopefully i’ll get an iphone this year) but hearing the notes on an actual Shamisen has been a huge help for me. Any thoughts?
Hi Evyn! of course there are apps for tunning your instrument, I have android and I have a lot of apps for tunning an instrument, searching in google you can see a lot of apps for iphone:
Thanks Paco! But is there one with the shamisen string sound? I don’t know why, maybe because i’m new the regular tuning sounds I used with my Viola back in the day are confusing me. But Kyles reference pitches work like a charm for me. They’re the ones here at the bottom:
Oh I wrote too quickly, those are the tuners that just tell you the note without making a sound! Love those! Even my teacher uses one. That’ll work I think 
yeah it is what I use for tunning my violin, so they work fine for shamisen too
I use tuning devices as well, but my advice is for you to work on practicing your own sense of tuning instead. You will always have to adjust to another player if you play shamisen together, and then you want to adjust it fast.
Getting a perfect C or what else for the first string is much better suited for a tuning device though, unless you have mad skills.
A smartphone tuning device specifically for shamisen, complete with settings for Niagari, Honchoushi and San Sagari… That’d be pretty sweet.
Part of me thinks it probably already exists in Japanese, but perhaps not!
I’m not sure if it exists in Japan or not. But if you could find a way to develop one Kyle, that’ll be extra money for you!
Hello all! I do not know if iPhone works for the application or not, but I use voice recorder on iPad for Shamisen lesson. Because our teacher does not use any paper material at all and every lesson requires recording.
And like violin tuner, my guitar tuner has a bass tuner function and it works as a shamisen tuner.
I use tuning devices as well, but my advice is for you to work on practicing your own sense of tuning instead. You will always have to adjust to another player if you play shamisen together, and then you want to adjust it fast.
Getting a perfect C or what else for the first string is much better suited for a tuning device though, unless you have mad skills.
Yeah, I agree with you, I usually try to set the string by ear first, and then see if I done it well comparing it with the tuning device. I bought a diapason to give me the La at 440
Anyway at first its very difficult to do, as with the practice of an instrument, its a thing that need time to worthwhile
But if you could find a way to develop one Kyle, that’ll be extra money for you!
Heheh. First I have to learn programming! 
Karl could do it.
Plenty of instrument tuner apps exist, but it would be pretty awesome to have one specifically for shamisen, or perhaps one that looks like a hougaku pitch pipe.
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Too bad iStore has a licensing cost for developing…
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Are Android apps the same?
but it would be pretty awesome to have one specifically for shamisen, or perhaps one that looks like a hougaku pitch pipe.
It would look great , i remmember few years ago there was a Pipa tuner on the internet , it was a Pipa top where you could pluck the string to tune up , unfortunately it does not exist anymore 
I still think it’s a great idea Kyle, if you can work it out. I’ll be one of the first to buy the Shamisen app for my future iphone! It would be great to have. Just make sure you make it beginner friendly too! That might seem redundent or obvious to advanced players but would help out the newbs quite a bit. ^^
Too bad iStore has a licensing cost for developing…
FFFFFFFfffff….
Are Android apps the same?
I don’t know since I am still with a sony ericsson (uh yeah as for the brand in general though ericsson and then sony ericsson all the way) simple phone awaiting the transition to one of those smartphones but this is FFFFFFfffffed up yours truly I have at least come to conclude that posing as the cool alternative apple would maybe even from the beginning have loved to be worse than microsoft or whatnot could ever have managed to be . . . although they got a pretty nice physical design as for their ipods and stuff but still
Evyn: Heheh, well if I ever tried to make it, you can be assured it would be simple. 
Even simple would be a huge challenge for me. (Making books, videos and things out of wood/coffee is more my specialty)
Hahaha!! I saw that episode. It was good.