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MUSIC APP – Coach’s Eye: An App for Musicians Too! by Jonathan Moody

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MUSIC APP – Coach’s Eye: An App for Musicians Too! by Jonathan Moody… I am a big fan of my iPhone, I’ll admit it. There are a lot of reasons why I sing its accolades but generally speaking, I am excited with what mobile technology (as a whole) has done for the musician. I have all of my iProducts full of audio recording apps, sheet music apps, tuning apps, and a bunch of synth apps which annoy my wife to no end. It’s safe to say that I’m always looking at what new things are coming out that I can snatch up for a buck and make my gigging life easier.

Enter Coach’s Eye, by Techsmith. Initially geared towards athletes, this app is designed for the coach to help train and improve their athletes by something we’ve secretly wanted for years; the instant replay. By using the camera, coaches can tape an athlete’s movement, and replay it back, notating and making comments over it. From there, you can immediately share it with the athlete, thus making more powerful corrections (because you can actually SEE what you’re doing) as well as saving it and uploading it to them via a number of options.

Imagine what we, as musicians, could do with the Coach’s Eye program.

Much like athletes, what musicians strive to perfect is proper technique. In a private lesson setting, using Coach’s Eye in the same intended manner would be easy to implement and yield immediate results, keeping the student from becoming frustrated and allowing the teacher to provide feedback that the student can see. And by sharing the video (either on the Coach’s Eye site or one of their other options), you could provide the student with a reference to review while they are practicing at home.

This works in the opposite way as well. Using the front camera on your iDevice (it’s a universal app that looks great on the ‘phone or ‘pad), you can record yourself practicing, working on a tough challenge and use Coach’s Eye to go back and assess how you did, using the flywheel in the program to slow down sections, repeat them and make notes to allow for greater learning. Better still is that you can save the initial video, share it with other people who have CE who can then import it into the program and give you feedback via long distance.

So practical application aside, how does Coach’s Eye work?

Simply put, very well. Within five minutes, I had a video recorded in the app and was ready to go back over it and add annotations. There is a tutorial available in the beginning of the app as well as some great stuff in the internet but seriously, the program is extremely simple and intuitive to use so I’d almost recommend you jump right in and
have some fun.

Because sound is so imperative to us musicians, I talked with the staff of Coach’s Eye, and bounced some ideas back and forth on how we could achieve audio quality that matched the video. With some ideas in hand, we met up and recorded a quick video to help you hear the differences that can be had with the right adaptor.

Coach’s Eye by Techsmith is an extremely easy-to-use app that provides a lot more than what you’d expect from the $4.99 pricetag. Combine that with some of the best, most exciting customer service that I’ve ever dealt with (in phone and in person), and it’s a completely awesome experience, all around. Initially only available for iDevices, it has just recently been released on the Android platform to world-wide acclaim.

Visit for more information on the MUSIC APP, Coach’s Eye

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20 April Edition – This Week’s Top 10 Basses on Instagram

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TOP 10 Basses of the week

Check out our top 10 favorite basses on Instagram this week…

Click to follow Bass Musician on Instagram @bassmusicianmag

FEATURED @kilianduartebass @meridian_guitars @adamovicbasses @marleaux_bassguitars @jcrluthier @sandbergguitars @ibanezuk_official @dingwallguitars @torzalguitars @ariaguitars

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April 13 Edition – This Week’s Top 10 Basses on Instagram

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TOP 10 Basses of the week

Check out our top 10 favorite basses on Instagram this week…

Click to follow Bass Musician on Instagram @bassmusicianmag

FEATURED @bacchusguitars @franz.bassguitars @mendesluthieria @ramabass.ok @meridian_guitars @adamovicbasses @shukerbassguitars @fantabass.it @andys_vintage_guitars @valdesbasses

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April 6 Edition – This Week’s Top 10 Basses on Instagram

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TOP 10 Basses of the week

Check out our top 10 favorite basses on Instagram this week…

Click to follow Bass Musician on Instagram @bassmusicianmag

FEATURED @murraykuun_guitars @ja.guitars @combe_luthier @overloadguitars @kevinhidebass @franz.bassguitars @indra_guitars @petercrowdesign @baboomin_bass @jcrluthier

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Mar 30 Edition – This Week’s Top 10 Basses on Instagram

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TOP 10 Basses of the week

Check out our top 10 favorite basses on Instagram this week…

Click to follow Bass Musician on Instagram @bassmusicianmag

FEATURED @sandbergguitars @benevolent_basses @rayriendeau @olintobass @wonkorbasses @bite.guitars @adamovicbasses @maruszczyk_instruments @skervesenguitars @ramabass.ok

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Melissa Auf Der Maur: Music, Bass, Gear, Hole, New Memoir, and More…

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Melissa Auf Der Maur: Music, Bass, Gear, Hole, New Memoir, and More…

Photo: Self-portrait by Melissa Auf Der Maur

Melissa Auf Der Maur is a Canadian bassist who played with Tinker, Hole, and The Smashing Pumpkins. She released her own work and is a photographer with photos published in Nylon, Bust, and National Geographic. She released her ‘90s Rock Memoir “Even The Good Girls Will Cry” on 17 March 2026. 

KB: Did you always want to be a singer-musician growing up?

I’ve played music my whole life. In school, I played trumpet and sang in a children’s choir, so music was always within me. My mother was the first female disc jockey on the Montreal airwaves; her record collection played a huge role in my inspiration and love of music.

KB: When did you start playing bass, and why this instrument?

When I was 19, the early 90s music explosion began to percolate in tiny clubs around the world. I was lucky to be a ticket girl at Montreal’s underground music club. In one year, I saw Hole, Sonic Youth, Smashing Pumpkins, White Zombie, and The Breeders – all had female bass players. That’s when the seed was planted. By the age of 22, I was the bass player of Hole.

KB: Which brands of basses have you used in your career, and which one are you using now?

The first bass that I learned on was a vintage Squier Precision. Hole was sponsored by Fender guitars, so I upgraded to Fender Custom Shop Precisions. That is all I play, but I have a cool vintage 8-string Greco that I use on recordings to thicken up guitar parts.

KB: What equipment do you use or have you used with your basses?

Ampeg SVT amps and cabinets, a couple of Sans-Amp pedals, and that is it.

KB: How did you become a member of Hole, and what is your fondest memory of that time?

Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins was helping scout a replacement for (RIP) Kristen Pfaff, Hole’s bass player. My band, Tinker, opened for them on the Siamese Dream tour, so Billy had seen me play and could vouch for me. Courtney trusted her talented friend, and that was it. I initially said “no thank you” due to my commitment to my photographic studies and the drama and chaos surrounding the band during the “Live Through This” album release. Courtney took it as a good sign that I said no, so convinced me to reconsider, and soon after, I accepted their invitation, in the name of helping put females in the male-dominated landscape of rock music. My fondest memory is every show we played as a mostly female band, symbolizing what a woman could do in a rock band. Every show had a purpose: get more women to play music.

KB: You are a photographer as well. What makes a great picture? Do you shoot in color or b/w?

I started shooting photographs at age 15. Initially only shot black & white and worked in the art school darkroom. In university, I took a color photography course, and shifted mostly and forever to that, because it was easier to process film on the road when I joined a rock band. I experimented with many cameras, point and shoots, manual, polaroids, medium format, and vintage finds. The trick to a good photograph is to shoot many and all the time – the magic is in the edit and selection process.

KB: Are there artists you would love to collaborate with or wish you had?

??I’ve been lucky to collaborate with some of my favorite musicians in my career. I would still love to collaborate with a new generation heavy electronic artist on an analog bass, heavy electronic drums, and synths collaboration project. Take me out of my usual zone, merging the past and future: my love of 80s dark new wave and new artists exploring that genre. It was very futuristic back then, and we are now, after all, living in the future. I am in the mood to play bass to heavy beats I want to dance to.

KB: What are your 7 favorite bass lines in music across all genres? And why these 7?

“Mountain Song” – Jane’s Addiction (love a rambling, rolling bass line – feels like the ocean waves)

“Black Top – Helmet” (was the first bass line I taught myself)

“Gold Dust Woman” – Hole from “The Crow 2” Soundtrack (it was my first bass line contribution to the band)

“Get Ready” – The Temptations (Motown just feels so good, because of the bass)

“Lucretia My Reflection” – Sisters of Mercy (makes me want to hit the dance floor and play bass simultaneously)

“Be My Druidess” – Type O Negative (full chord bass playing at its best by iconic, demonic, Peter Steele, RIP)

“Romantic Rights” – Death from Above (1979 – unique distorted overdriven tone, combined dance rhythm and melodic intelligence, all in one shot – also! Shout out to a bass & drum only band, which is awesome, and we should have more of, but the bass player needs to be a killer to fill that role.

KB: What are you currently up to?

Releasing my ‘90s Rock Memoir “EVEN THE GOOD GIRLS WILL CRY”. Visceral healing process, it was to get it out of me and write it, but I suspect the real magic will begin by putting it into the world and reflecting with others on what the magic of the ‘90s was all about. Powerful music decade that carried us into what is now a brave new world of digital corporate weirdness – may the past shed a light on our future. That’s my hope for this book release and tour.

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