Week 4: January 30th - February 5th

Individual Log - Zach

Research this week started with Dr. Ejaz's advice to compare a number of instrument tuners on the market, determine what's unique about them, and if there are any features that most of them lack or that some have but others don't. The latter was true, wherein, most tuners on the market either provide a feature that others don't or include a feature that is common but provide more versatility in such regard. This developed a baseline for project one's scope and responsibility division. In an effort to bring some context to my group partners, I prepared the scope for presentation at our group meeting. The group was able to offer constructive thought that perhaps producing a tuner was not the best approach. This is simply because there are hundreds of different options available to the consumer, despite the fact that many offer some unique features, the market is saturated. After some thought, I began looking away from tuners specifically, and more into devices currently on the market that offer a multi-purpose tool for musicians.

After an exhaustive search, I found that there are few options available to musicians (as far as hardware is concerned) that offer a tuner, metronome, tone generator, and music lessons [9][10][11]. There are a number of options out there, for instance: Roadie Coach, a hardware based device with software capabilities, and Yousician, an android and iOS based app. Both are capable of recording and analyzing your playing, teaching some theory, and assisting with tuning, however both of these limit themselves primarily to guitarists. As a musician, I find validity in providing options for musicians of all types, from the garage band to the marching band to the orchestra and beyond. With this in mind, MUSA was designed.