'Indispensible': New app NomadPlay takes practice to new level

How things change. Had someone informed me one month ago that I would shortly be solo-ing in JS Bach's Concerto for Two Violins in D minor with the Orchestre national d'Île-de-France, I would have choked on my tea. Out of horror as much as shock, because verily my playing is barely inflictable upon my neighbours, let alone anyone in the music world. Yet play with the Orchestre national d'Île-de-France I did last week – loudly, joyously and repeatedly – thanks to the brand new NomadPlay app which allows you to mute an instrumental line of your choice on a recording, so as to play along in its place.

Some background. NomadPlay is the brainchild of Clothilde Chalot, inspired by the schools workshops she organised when working in orchestral administration and production. 'Sometimes the children had never heard a harpsichord before my baroque ensemble visited their school,' she recounts. 'But because the meeting with the artists had been great, the children would afterwards ask me both how they continue to discover the artists and to play with them. So that's what NomadMusic was about – bringing young amateurs and professionals closer together. Because children generally don't go to concerts – they just go to music lessons, and then play. Yet music shouldn't be like maths. It's music! It's not something to be done under duress. So I wanted to make the thing more attractive and motivating.'

So in 2014 Chalot joined with Hannelore Guittet to co-found Digital Music Solutions, initially launching the record label NomadMusic, but with NomadPlay – which then launched in January 2020 – always part of the game plan. It then took the company's in-house technological pool five years of research and development to make the crucial algorithm that removes the instruments.

The resultant app is a subscription-only platform – available on both iOS and Android, and available from all devices – that initially looks much like any other musical streaming service. However when you click in on a work, you get to select whichever individual part or orchestral section you wish to play. The recording will then sound minus your selected line, as the score guides you along, highlighting the current bar. Tempo and volume can be adjusted. The scores can be annotated. The works are downloadable. Tuning information and difficulty level are also displayed. And as with any other streaming service, each time a work is played, royalties go to its artists and label, plus the publisher of the score (and NomadPlay is working with Les Éditions Henry Lemoine, Pierre Lafitan and Editions Billaudot).

As for who your virtual musical partners actually are, they're as high-grade as the technology itself, and living figures you can then go see in concert. Soloists range from established names such as violinist Renaud Capuçon and pianist David Kadouch, to rising generation artists such as violinist Fenella Humphreys and tenor Cyrille Dubois (and with these rising generation names it's a win-win arrangement, the app able to present its younger subscribers with especially easily-identifiable-with figures, and the young artists themselves benefiting from an increased international profile); orchestras and ensembles meanwhile include the Orchestre de Chambre de Paris, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg and Quatuor Zaïde; and beyond the obvious pleasure of melding your voice into that professional sound, the natural outcome of playing with artists of that level, even just virtually, is that you find yourself raising your own game as you instinctively react to the phrasing and articulation you're hearing around you.

'When I was little I did lots of sport, and in training we were often put with older boys,' remembers Chalot. 'When you're always with people of a superior level, it pushes you higher yourself.' She continues, 'It's also motivating to be welcomed in and accepted by them, and so with NomadPlay it's similarly about breaking down barriers, and making classical musicians feel less distant. It's a proof of their accessibility and humility if you can play in the place of Renaud Capuçon in your own home.'

The app's range of instruments goes far beyond the standard orchestral choices plus piano, too, with even bagpipe and n'goni players catered for. The Baroque offering is particularly impressive, covering instruments such as harpsichord, viola da gamba, theorbo and Baroque guitar. As for the catalogue itself, it's currently healthy without being exhaustive. For instance, I couldn't find any piano trios in the chamber category. However around 100 new works are being added each month. 

The diversity will eventually stretch beyond instruments and repertoire, too. 'Initially we'll have one version of a work,' explains Chalot, 'but eventually we're probably going to have several. Otherwise it's not Mozart, but Mozart played by a particular artist, and each artist has a different way of speaking. Equally, we began by working with French artists and orchestras because it's easier when we're a French company, but we're now also working with the Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège, some German orchestras, and we'd like to work with British orchestras; and we're now looking for artists in England and in the US. So what will be really great is when we perhaps have a London orchestra's version of Beethoven's ninth, along with versions from Saarbrücken, Paris and Tokyo.' In fact, the only thing that feels missing to me – simply because they've thought of everything else – is an in-app tuner; although perhaps that's already on the cards, given that the aforementioned technological pool's research and development is ongoing.

As exciting as all this is for amateur musicians, though, NomadPlay is actually every bit as much for the classical music industry itself. 'We wanted to create another use for recorded music for it,' Chalot emphasises 'a new economic model'. And this in turn is why it was so vital for the app to have developed its own algorhythm for separating any given musical line from any finished recording – because it allows any record label to supply recordings to NomadPlay, in exactly the same way as they would to Spotify or Deezer. Currently, they're working with Naxos, Outhere Music, and Chandos, in addition to making recordings of their own.

The hope and expectation is then that the app will gradually grow a younger audience for classical music. 'You can communicate with NomadPlay on social media,' Chalot enthuses. 'People love to share on Instagram or Facebook that they've just played with Les Talents Lyriques directed by Christophe Rousset in their bedroom. So I think that, for the artists themselves, these sharings are really going to win a young community of followers, giving them a more modern and current image, and in turn leading to the young student musicians then going to their concerts.'

As for where next, Chalot's immediate objective is to have NomadPlay widely taken up by music schools, conservatoires and universities, and that's already well under way – 30 conservatories in France have subscribed, as have some in the Czech Republic and the US. So the hope now is that British and German institutions will follow. As for the long-term goal, she smiles merrily and responds without a second's hesitation, 'To become indispensable'.

Still. It's all very well to read of a founder's lofty ambitions, or the amazed pleasure of an adult amateur musician. The real acid test is what happens when the app is put in front of Chalot's chief target market. So, step forward my teenage daughter: an advanced recorder player who isn't falling over either harpsichordist partners or Baroque ensembles at her local state secondary school; and since the app's arrival on my iPad, she's been voraciously sight-reading through its Telemann, Purcell, Van Eyck and Vivaldi once her set practice is over, in raptures at suddenly having a harpsichordist to accompany her at home. Time spent with her recorders has doubled. She's identified a challenging sonata she wants to officially work on with her teacher. Plus, when she finally fancies some orchestral music, she can accompany an aria or two with Les Talens Lyriques. As for when our press pass runs out, the decision is made – we're subscribing. Because in the space of just a week, NomadPlay has indeed already become indispensable.

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