Want to Sing Bluegrass Harmony? There’s an App For That!

In the song “Nashville Cats” the singer describes guitar pickers who can “pick more notes than the number of ants on a Tennessee anthill.” Flashy, fast, high-octane playing on any instrument is prized in bluegrass music. 

But so is harmony singing. And two veteran bluegrass musicians/educators have created an app that helps people learn how to create the vocal sound that is an essential element of bluegrass music. The name says it all: singbluegrassharmony.com 

“I love a good bluegrass jam where you rip solos,” says Austin Scelzo, a gifted and in-demand fiddler who is one of the creators of the app. “But sometimes if you only have one singer on every song I almost would prefer not so many talented pickers, but great singers who know how to harmonize so every song has a wonderful chorus. It's just so satisfying to connect with other people to create a good harmony. I'm always searching for that.”

The subscription based app features a growing library of bluegrass songs with accompaniment and harmony parts that can be isolated or played in any combination. The user can change the key and adjust the mix of the various parts. The song can be slowed down to study difficult passages. Peter Wernick, the respected banjoist and educator, whom Scelzo considers to be a mentor, has noted that the app is similar to Strum Machine, another teaching and practice app used by many bluegrass instrumentalists. 

“He saw our app on the same plane potentially as a tool for the bluegrass community,” Scelzo says. “For a lot of people singing good harmony in the jam is just as important as being able to play your solos in time, which is one reason people practice with Strum Machine.”

Benjamin Lieb is the other half of the app. He plays reeds, strings, and horns, and is a software engineer, and linguist living in Asheville, N.C. 

“I have a Masters in education and I started off in education,” Lieb explains. “I look at this as an educational experience for the users. The question is, how can I facilitate their growth? What's getting in the way? 

“Austin is often in front of people in music workshops that might be interested in this and I'm kind of taking on the technology role and doing a lot of interaction with people who are having technical issues.”

Scelzo lives in Connecticut, where he launched The Connecticut Bluegrass Association, and plays fiddle with the band Rock Hearts. He’s a veteran Wernick Method jam class teacher and teaches extensively at festivals and workshops across the nation. His experiences as a teacher led to his interest in developing the app.

“Ben and I actually met at a music camp and we connected over our love of music originally and then later over our shared love for education and community and bringing people together.”

Scelzo had been experimenting with technology when he was teaching in public schools. Lieb’s software engineering expertise made him a perfect partner to develop the app. While Lieb was immersed in the technical work, Scelzo was getting feedback from potential users.

“At all the camps that I was at I would put the app in front of people and see how they responded to it and I would send Ben feedback and he would make adjustments,” Scelzo remembers. “That happened over the course of the year before we officially released it.

“We had originally created this app with sort of a broader mindset. We thought it might be adopted by school choir programs or choir programs in churches. And we thought we might expand it to other instruments like twin fiddles or twin mandolins. But we settled on focusing it on the bluegrass audience and bluegrass musicians.”

Lieb says the app does something beyond teaching people how to sing. It’s helping preserve a tradition that allows people to create community.

“I grew up in the military and we moved around a lot. I didn't really have community until I got to college and stumbled upon this old-time jam. When I went there, my world just exploded. I met all these people. It was a beautiful thing. I just couldn't believe that people were doing this. But I also learned pretty early that it is an endangered thing because of the way we live now. So when I look around and think about what I should be doing with my life, maintaining that tradition is probably one of the most important things I could do.

“I think the most beautiful thing about music is that it brings people together. You can be in the same room together looking at cell phones, but you’re not really together. But harmony, especially vocal harmony, brings you together, so I'm just really excited about what we can do for people.”

https://www.singbluegrassharmony.com/