Eleanor P. writes,

Editing and writing is my job but music is my passion and has been for years, playing various instruments and composing for all sorts of occasions. Coming across Harp has been mind-boggling and unbelievably exciting. The gentle sound immediately made me strum three basic linked chords and invent a folk song-like piece, complete with words, within minutes of downloading. It’s easy to work out different styles and ways of strumming to suit slow or fast rhythms, and the inspiration simply flows from there. All we need now is a way of recording it for keeps, but even without this, Harp is going to be used on my travels to keep me sane (how long can you play Angry Birds??) and as a substitute for getting out my guitar just to check how something will sound.

JennHi, of Los Angeles writes:

This app is everything I ever needed in a musical transcription tool. Anyone can haul out a MIDI keyboard or guitar, if they wish, to try to transcribe the chords of a song by ear, and how nice is it to balance a guitar on your lap while trying to write, or get room for a keyboard at your desktop? I have room for neither, and besides which, I don’t play piano or guitar. Enter “Harp”, a compact, easy iPhone app which will give you every chord you can think of and a friendly interface from which to pick the chord. It doesn’t insult your intelligence, either, by only giving you a major, minor, or 7th; it offers diminished and augmented triads, and the whole gamut of combinations for the 7th chords. Pick, strum, hear, match to the music. Within a half hour, I had everything I needed from Paul Williams’ Faust, a task that I had been putting off for years due to the hectic struggling to try to get all the tools together. Not bad for someone who doesn’t play guitar or piano!

I like the way Harp is laid out because I have easy access to the circle of fifths along with all the chord variations… that’s 168 different chords at my fingertips. It’s very easy to strum the bar on the right while changing the chords with the left hand. If you want to play an extended chord simply touch the root note and then glide or slide to the structure to extend the chord. It’s a great way to test chord progressions… you can quickly try different chord changes to help speed along songwriting or inspire new directions.

Review of Harp at iPhoneMusicApps.com

Oh, and we will be making the built-in sounds better, and we also have some other surprises coming for Harp. Happy New Year!