Recently we had an opportunity to speak with Andrew Stewart from Andrew Stewart about Lyrecord

Please share with us the backstory of what motivated you to create this app.

One of my favourite hobbies is playing the guitar and practising my singing, but I was always frustrated that I would learn how to play a song and then not fully remember the chords a couple of months later. So the first thing that Lyrecord does is keep a list of all the songs I have learned and chords for them.

I also used to use the voice memos app a lot to record myself playing and then listen back to see how I sounded. This worked great, but resulted in hundreds of unnamed recordings that were impossible to navigate through. Now with Lyrecord, all my recordings are automatically sorted by song and it couldn't be easier to go back and listen to any song I want!

What features do you hope to roll out to your app in the future?

I would love to introduce some sort of multi-user functionality. This would open up a whole new world of possibilities: you would be able to share the songs that you've been learning with your friends, or subscribe to music teachers/programs who publish new songs for you to learn!

What has been the most rewarding aspect of the creation of this app?

The most rewarding aspect of creating this app is having something that I genuinely love and use a lot. The voice memos app is a powerful enemy to take on, but I would honestly never go back after using Lyrecord!

What is the coolest or most innovative feature of your app?

The coolest feature is definitely the way that recording works and how it lets you see the chords the selected song at the same time!

Imagine this: you're learning a song and have all the chords exactly how you like them on your phone in front of you. Now, you can open up a bottom sheet view that shows you all the recordings you have for that song and playback any one of them. And at the bottom of this view is a nice big record button where you can start a new recording, which collapses the list of recordings above it so you can see the chords as you play and record.

Honestly, you're just gonna have to see it to believe it.

What surprised you most in your journey to create this app?

What surprised me most is how nicely the final product seemed to all come together so quickly and how magically all the different pieces of UI suddenly made sense with each other.

The feature that involved the most iteration was the screen where a user enters a new song. This started as a very simple form, which just had text fields for all the different parts of a song I could think of (eg verse, chorus, etc). This first version was incredibly clunky and not user-friendly at all, but I was still willing to use it for the convenience of having all my songs entered on the app.

The final version is fully dynamic, a user can enter a chord sequence and assign any label for what part of the song it is that they like. There is no limit for the number of chord progressions a user can have for a song, and the UI is incredibly flexible with the ability to duplicate, delete or reorder chord progressions to allow for any different way the user wants to see the chords.

The reason this surprised me is that it started as what seemed like a wild thought, but turned out to be very effective and matched very well with the other UX patterns in other parts of the app.

Which other mobile apps or technology have inspired you?

Uber Eats for sure. It's such an exciting app to use and it sparks a lot of inspiration for what kind of unique but intuitive swipe gestures and animations are possible.

Do you have any recommendations or advice for others wanting to create a mobile app?

Just dive in and do it. The first version will definitely be terrible, but that's part of the fun of it! It's an amazing feeling to keep coming back to completely revamp your features as you become a better developer and keep having better and better ideas for the UX.

How did you decide which platforms to release your app on and do you plan on releasing your app to other platforms?

At the moment the app is only availably on IOS, for no other reason other than I have an iPhone and prioritised getting the app for myself. Android is coming soon!

How is your app different than the rest of the market? Which unique need does it fill?

This app can be used by musicians at any level of ability. Anyone from an absolute beginner to a kickass live performer will find value in it. Lyrecord is not just another app for recording a new idea for a song on the spot immediately, nor is it just an app for looking up the chords to a song.

Lyrecord is an app where you can create your own list of songs that you have learnt, keep the chords for those songs and easily track your progress by recording yourself playing them. What makes Lyrecord unique is that it closes the loop that so many other apps leave open - this is the only place where a user can see the chords to a song and record themselves playing at the same time!

You can view Lyrecord here