Whether you’re a beginning student or have been playing since you were 3, Nota is sure to be an asset for any musician. Created by Melvin Rivera, Nota is an comprehensive resource for fundamental music theory. Nota provides the basic user with a 4 octave piano that displays the key played with its concurrent note on a staff. There is also a Notes Quiz that tests you on identifying notes on a staff. The easy level consists of 34 notes, while the Advanced level contains 82 notes along with sharps and flats. I find this Quiz to be a perfect venue to work on note recognition/sight reading and I hope there are plans to expand the quiz to include chords, which would only make a good thing better. For the more advanced user, Nota comes stocked with a conclusive Reference Library with terms and definitions, including the Circle of Fifths. Flip to landscape mode and you easily can search through the library by symbol. But what really makes Nota great is its extensive Scales and Chords Browsers. With Nota, you can look up practically any chord or scale and it will display the notes and keys and play it so you can hear what it sounds like. The latest edition also includes Solfège mode, to have notes shown in their solfège syllables. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, it’s how the other part of the world refers to notes, think “Doe, a deer, a female deer; ray, a drop of golden sun…”

Nota is straightforward and easy to navigate. It is also beautifully designed and the piano sounds are full and clear. You can also try it out for yourself with the free Nota Lite. Nota Lite does not have the Scales and Chords Browsers, Quiz or Reference Library but does comes with the 4 octave piano that displays the notes on the scale as well as the full screen piano in Landscape mode.

If you’re coming in expecting to learn how to play the piano, you’ll probably be better off looking for an instructor or music academy. However, if you’re looking for a fantastic music reference guide with added functions, at $4.99, Nota is definitely worth looking into.

This 3rd Party App is available at the Apple iTunes AppStore. Browse the full list of all AppStore apps filed under the AppStore category.

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Each game play (there are four different songs/characters to choose from) results in unlocking one fortune telling card which can be found in the extras section of the app. There are 12 cards in all to unlock and it really takes nothing more than playing a game to unlock the next one (you literally can just let the game run on its own, scoring 0 and it will still unlock a card). The fortune telling cards are basically a visual introduction to the film’s characters.  It might have been nice to make it so you could at least save them as wallpaper, although you can simulate as much by using the home+power button to take a screenshot, it will just have the few dots along the bottom.

The bulk of the app is the full-length video to Never Knew I Needed by Ne-Yo, from the original motion picture soundtrack.

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Rock Band allows gamers to choose from playing the guitar, bass guitar, drums, and even singingwhile rocking out to a particular song. In console versions, you use plastic guitar, drum kit, and microphone. On the iPhone and iPod Touch, each of these instruments are played by tapping four areas on the screen to match up with the musical notes coming down the screen.

We extensively previewed the game, and preferred it to the other available rhythm games:

Where Rock Band pulls ahead of the pack of rhythm games on the iPhone is when it comes to overall immersion while you’re playing the songs.

Obviously there’s only so much immersion that you can achieve when you’re pretending to play a guitar by tapping on the screen of your iPhone, but playing the tracks in the iPhone Rock Band works just like its console big brother in that every note you miss causes the music to be interrupted. This seems to add so much more to the game than just tapping along to a song like other similar games on the platform with music that just keeps playing regardless of how poorly you’re doing.

Rock Band for the iPhone comes loaded with 20 songs, and additional songs can be purchased in game in packs of two for 99¢. This is not only cheaper than buying the songs themselves from iTunes, but also significantly cheaper than buying them inside of any other iteration of Rock Band.

Also included is four player local bluetooth multiplayer, achievements, Facebook connectivity, and along with both single song game modes and a “World Tour” career mode. Keep in mind, because of the in-game DLC, Rock Band requires the 3.0 OS.

The iPhone version of Rock Band does a great job at emulating some of the feel of the console original, and thanks to the four distinct playable tracks in each song, the game also offers an experience not found in competing games on the App Store. With the cheapest DLC to be found in the Rock Band series, the iPhone version will be hard for fans to pass up. The main complaints relating to veterans of Rock Band finding the iPhone version to be too easy, along with the somewhat expected complaint regarding the track selection.

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While these titles are as pleasing to the ear as one of Jimmy Page’s guitar solos, not everyone subscribes to that particular brand of music, and as a result we’re now seeing urban gamers catered for with a new breed of game that allows you to step behind the wheels of steel and drop some seriously phat beats.

Hip Hop All Star is just one member of this new contingent of rhythm-action games, granting the opportunity to step into the shoes of actual hip hop DJs. It’s a dream come true if you’re into a bit of turntable terror.

If you think that Snoop Doggy Dogg is a cartoon character and vinyl is something you lay on the floor in your kitchen,  then it’s all going to seem a little alien, and there’s a danger you might confuse this title with a very similar iPhone release – namely Tap Tap Revenge.

Despite the rap vibe, Hip Hop All Star is essentially a clone of Tapulous’s best-selling app. You tap the screen when markers pass over a certain point on the turntable and hold your finger down for markers that display a glowing trail behind them.

The only real difference is the fact that instead of the note markers coming down a straight line – as they do in Tap Tap Revenge – they rotate around the turntable towards the tap zone.

The title’s only real unique feature is Scratch mode, accessible when you’ve performed well in the main game. Here, you can boost your score by rhythmically scratching a second turntable.

The temptation is to quickly move your finger across the screen to rack up a huge combo. While more controlled scratching does usually yield a larger points haul, a more random approach often seems to work just as effectively, which cheapens the experience a little.

The presentation is likeable, with animated menus, colourful backgrounds and a smoothly rotating turntable. Sadly the music is rather less impressive, with the tracks themselves coming across a bit muffled – even when listened through a pair of headphones.

Nevertheless, the gameplay is decent enough. There’s something appealing about prodding away to any form of music, and when you manage to make your way through an entire song without missing a single beat then it results in a genuine glow of pride.

Multiplayer is also in the cards, although it’s local only, offering connectivity over wi-fi and Bluetooth. With Tap Tap Revenge 3 boasting online games, this is something of a letdown.

Where Hip Hop All Star comes well and truly unstuck is longevity. The songs that come with the game will keep you occupied for only so long, and although additional song packs are available, I-play can’t hope to match the gargantuan selection boasted by its rivals.

If you’re a fan of rap music, Hip Hop All Star is likely to strike a chord, but don’t go expecting an authentic DJ-style experience. This is essentially a clone with a grittier feel to it, and sadly that’s not a good rap to go on.

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Rock Band takes the ‘tap-along’ music/rhythm gameplay to a new level not only because of the long list of hit tracks, but because it allows you to put together a virtual band and rock out via (up to) four-player Bluetooth multiplayer for the first time ever on the iPhone.

There’s even an asynchronous multiplayer system connecting players through Facebook that allows you to lay down your respective tracks individually.

Guitar, bass, drums and vocals are all included, with varying levels of difficulty as your rock god prowess improves. And once you’re ready for more music, the in-game store is always open for you to purchase additional tracks.

This isn’t a cheap game, though, weighing in at full price of £5.00/$9.99, so check out our hands on preview and the full track listing before you head out on stage.

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Studio Radiolaris has dropped the price of their musical shooter Radio Flare [App Store] to free for this weekend only (from .99). The game is a solid side scrolling shooter for the iPhone with a musical component to it that we enjoyed when it first came out. The developers have since added a number of new features and levels to the game since its original release and is certainly worth downloading for free.

The reason for the price drop is in celebration of the announcement of their follow-up title Radio Flare Redux. This time, Studio Radiolaris is teaming up with Chillingo as a publisher for their new title. Radio Flare Redux is said to bring a whole new experience with a fresh new style.

“It will be great to have multiple licensed music tracks in Radio Flare Redux. This way each level will be a unique experience.” says Fares Kayali, Sound Designer at studio radiolaris. Adds Martin Pichlmair, Lead Designer for Radio Flare Redux, “Everything is driven by rhythm and beat – from the enemies’ paths to their actions and even the background graphics!”

The following teaser video has been released:

Redux is due for release in “Winter 2009”.

App Store Link: Radio Flare, Free (This weekend only)

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