Harmonium Jali

The sound of the harmonium is very nice and there are a lots of bells and whistles. However, the app does not run in the background when you are playing two apps simultaneously and you are not on the screen of this app. This makes it almost useless if you are playing it along with iTabla Pro and you have Tanpura and the Tabla playing at the same time. You want to be able to play the harmonium app when you are on the screen of the ITabla Pro app. This is not a limitation of the ITanpura Pro app because I have other Harmonium apps that play in that manner seamlessly. I hope the developers can fix this. Also, it would be very nice to add Bluetooth MIDI capability. Avoiding a cable would be a big plus.

This app has more than I could ever imagine for a harmonium, to the point I would in some ways rather use it than a real harmonium. It even has a choice to actually “pump” the bellows like a real harmonium to give you the feeling of actually playing harmonium (which I think is important to really experience the feelings of what it is like to play in a chant, etc) or make it function automatically. There are also so many different sounding harmoniums, and so many different ways to experience it. The only complaint (but wait, I found a correction for this…keep reading on) I have is that when I first opened it, the lower notes in the register sounded at a certain point when I went down the octaves to be more like a cheap synthesized sound and less authentic to a harmonium. BUT, when I changed the stops, that sound went away. Also, if you activate the stops that play octaves lower or higher along with each note you play, that glitch disappears. I had just purchased to unlock all features (which, by the way, is an incredible price — just about $11, with 40% off sale deal of the usual $19 when you first get the app…which is why I bought it right away), so I actually was freaked out when this first happened, because I thought, “Oh no, what a great app, I won’t find anything like this anywhere else, and then they have this glitch,” I was even ready to actually get a refund and even emailed the developer to ask for it, so it was a relief when I found a way around it. My advice to the develops is to fix this completely. The other thing I want to add is that there is a fantastic option to play along with many traditional Indian drum beats — and even Western drum beats. These make it really like you are playing with a group and can even have your own satsang for chanting for yourself, or do it in a group if there isn’t a drummer available. What I also love is that you can put on reverb or even delay. I downloaded every other harmonium app from the app store, and none of them had these features, by the way — far more rudimentary. Also there are like in depth tutorials to play the harmonium, scale lessons, chants to learn — I haven’t even gotten into all that yet. But the price, $11 — you can’t beat that. Lugging around a real harmonium is not easy, and also sitting there pumping it can hurt the back, and I haven’t touched my own harmonium in a long time because of this. I am most grateful and thankful to have a way to play again easily and spontaneously. It feels good for my soul, since I like to chant with the harmonium, and I haven’t done that in years. Thank you for whoever developed this! I hope it gets noticed by more people around the world!

I’ve tried many harmonium apps, but none come close to the real thing than this. This app is beautifully designed, and most importantly offers the real beautiful tone of a harmonium. This app has even done an amazing implementation of the bellows that feels natural. I also love that you can select your scale and get the note names in the keys. There are also different harmoniums you can pick from (Kolkata is my favorite) and you can even make your own custom one. Definitely worth every penny.