Thanks for sharing that — I really appreciate your perspective and experience.

I absolutely agree: bending is a deeply organic thing that you need to feel and hear in your body. No app can replace that. The goal of my app is not to teach you how to bend, but to help you understand what you're actually playing — especially for beginners who are unsure whether their bend reached the target pitch.

It’s more like a "mirror" than a teacher: you still have to do the work with your ears, but the app can help confirm (or challenge) what you think you hear. Some folks find that helpful in the early stages.

Also — yes to Gindick and Jason Ricci! Two amazing resources. I hope my app can complement, not replace, that kind of learning journey.

Thanks again for the thoughtful input!

I also learned from that book + tape about 30 years ago. I also have to strongly agree with this. It's quite different from learning stringed instruments. I'm sure it has a lot in common with some brass instruments, but either way, seeing doesn't help. Hearing and feeling is everything. That also makes it easier than most to learn via cassette tape! :)

The app seems neat, but focused on precision in bending. Precision in bends doesn't matter a ton for most styles. It's more about feel. Build and resolve tension. Don't worry too much about hitting things exactly. That advice will eventually fail you if you go into styles that need a more complete scale, but for blues/rock/country, it's much more about intuition than precision. The best way to learn is to play along with a lot of things and build "feel" instead of trying to precisely hit notes. (though you do need to hit a clean note to start bending)

Thank you so much for the kind words – I’m really happy to hear you found it helpful, even for violin!

Let’s Bend was originally designed to support harmonica bending practice, but the idea of using the "stay in the square" feedback as a pitch visualizer for other instruments is incredibly exciting. It’s great to see it working in real musical contexts!

Just to address your points:

There’s already a *“Keep screen on”* toggle in the app settings – enabling it should prevent Android from turning off the screen during use.

You can also *change the root key and tuning system* in the settings. While the interface is still harmonica-focused, this makes the app more flexible – including for lower pitches like a violin's low G.

I’m genuinely grateful for your feedback and enthusiasm – and thanks for trying the app in such a creative way!

There are different types of harmonicas. For 10-hole/blues harmonicas bending is a fairly common technique. It's less common or easy to do on other types of harmonicas, eg chromatic harmonicas. Maybe you tried one of those as a kid.

Thanks so much for this detailed and generous comment — it’s incredibly encouraging to hear from someone with your level of experience.

Yes, the email listed on the Imprint page is the best way to reach me — I’d love to hear your suggestions when you get a chance.

And it’s great that you brought up Melody Maker tuning! Even though I don’t currently own a harp in that tuning, I’ve implemented theoretical support for Melody Maker (as well as other Richter variants) in the app already. So users can visualize bends and pitches correctly even when playing in those alternate tunings.

Your Stevie Nicks example is such a beautiful use case. Expressive bending like that — starting just below the pitch and sliding up — is exactly the kind of thing I hope the app can help people hear and understand more consciously.

Also, I really appreciate that you mentioned manual retuning. Let’s Bend was designed to be lightweight and offline, so it’s ideal for checking pitch quickly when tuning by ear or file. That’s one of the practical scenarios I had in mind from the start.

Thanks again — I’m learning a lot from your comment.

Very interesting! I've played harp casually all my life without ever really learning about alternate tunings. The Melody Maker sounds like it would open some nifty possibilities! Someone bought me a chromatic harp once as a gift and I could never figure out how to play it properly. It's funny though, because as a piano and guitar player I never thought about what I was doing. I just play a cheap blues band or marine band, and I realize now that the positions that feel most normal to me are 1st, 2nd and oddly, 12th. I remember once jamming with an old folk rocker (my former guitar teacher) and he started playing something in F major while I was on a C harp. He didn't think I'd be able to follow - at the time, I just called this "cross harp" because I thought that was the generic term for playing in any other key! I don't know why playing in a major 4th seems so unusual, but he was kinda shocked that I pulled it off. There's only one note you can't play straight in that setup...

> Lower notes are generally easier to bend than higher notes

One thing to note (pun intended) is that you can only bend the higher of the two notes in a hole. On the lower half of the harmonica, those are the draw notes. But the upper octave switches these around. The blow notes are the higher ones there, and those are the ones you can bend.

> Don’t start with a wooden harp like marine band. The metal and plastic ones are typically a bit easier to bend.

OTOH I find the Marine Band Crossover (with a bamboo comb) to be probably the best bending harp out there due to it receiving detailed factory setup.

> Lower notes are generally easier to bend than higher notes

Additionally, you'll probably find a lower key harp to bend better, at least to a point. I feel like an A harp is the sweet spot for bending really well without being so low that it starts becoming difficult. G harps are good too, but require you to dig deeper to get a good bend.

I disagree with (1) and (3). I think for a novice bending low notes is more difficult. For me the easiest note to bend was hole 6 on a C harmonica. Also, I don't think wood vs plastic matters for how easy bending is.

Thanks so much — that means a lot!

Thanks! That sounds like a cool idea too. In Let’s Bend, I also included a scale training mode, where users can practice playing along with different scales. Maybe that could be useful for your project as well. Feel free to dig into the source code, and let me know if you have questions!

Thanks — great to hear you liked it, and that’s a really smart suggestion!

Actually, you've inspired a related idea I’ve been thinking about: since the app already shows a magnified pitch view for each target note, I could track how accurately each target is hit — not over time, but per note. That means collecting cent-deviation stats every time a target pitch is active.

For example, if you’re working on bending hole 3 draw down to F#, the app could keep track of: - how many times that target was attempted, - your average deviation (in cents), - and your best attempt so far.

It’s not a full frequency-vs-time graph, but it's very focused feedback — and could motivate practice in a very concrete way. I’d love to make this part of a future version. Thanks again for the spark!

I know what a harmonica is and also what bending usually means, but was perplexed at why someone would want to bend one except out of destructive anger.

Well, harmonica and accordion are both free-reed instruments, so you're close :)