I’ve been playing the cello for almost 15 years now. It’s an entirely acoustic instrument, but (for me at least) there are several electronic bits that go along with the cello.
I use the TonalEnergy tuner app on my iPhone. It’s my tuner, my metronome, and a drone generator, all in one. Since the app keeps the phone on, I keep my phone plugged in while I practice. This allows me to spot check my intonation or practice with a click without interrupting my flow very much.
I scan and create PDF copies of all my music. These are imported into forScore. forScore is a PDF viewer that has been customized for sheet music. You can add finger number, bow directions, notes, and text quickly and easily. Instead of carrying a bag full of bound music, I bring an iPad with hundreds of pieces of music.
I’m using a 12.9-inch iPad Pro, which nearly duplicates standard US paper size. Combined with forScore, it’s a perfect digital sheet music library.
forScore has an incredibly neat feature where you can use facial gestures to turn the page forward or backward. You can choose between winking, nodding, or pursing your lips to the left (backward) or right (forward). I’m only able to wink one eye, so I can’t go back a page with winking. The lip pursing or nodding is too easy to accidentally do, which isn’t useful, especially when performing.
So I bought a Bluetooth foot pedal. Two big buttons, one for forward, one for backward. After only a few days practice, it has become second nature to use.
For several years now I’ve been wearing some kind of hearing enhancement. About a year ago I got a pair of Jabra Enhance hearing aids. These have four different modes: normal, music, restaurant, and outdoor. On normal mode my cello has an odd echo effect. Switching to music mode eliminates echo.
When I go to practice or play I first plug in my iPhone and open the TonalEnergy app. My phone goes into a clamp on a flexible stalk fastened tomy music stand. Next I flip on the foot pedal, and turn on my iPad Pro and open forScore. Finally I use the Apple Watch Jabra app to select the music mode for my hearing aids.
After all of that, I’m ready to play my acoustic instrument.
For bonus points I also have a 5-string electric cello from NS Design. This gets plugged into a Peavey bass amp. Then everything is electric.