I’ve always loved learning new things. In 2009, I set out on a new challenge: learning to sing. Ever since childhood, I’d known I couldn’t carry a tune — my secondary-school teacher confirmed it by promptly excluding me from the choir after my brief attempt at the major scale using Do, Re, Mi. Two decades later, I decided it was time to change that. I tried many different techniques, and one promising option was a PlayStation game called SingStar, which shows your pitch as you sing popular songs — a really fun experience. Unfortunately, it also confirmed my teacher’s long-ago assessment: I struggled to hit many notes. There were gaps in my range where the sound I aimed for would jump up or down to the next note; I couldn’t hold the pitch in between.

In the meantime, I picked up several voice-training books and CDs, practicing lessons during my commute. These improved my tone, but I still couldn’t tell if I was in tune. Determined to fix my pitch, I searched for software that combined voice lessons with real-time feedback. To my disappointment, nothing existed. I spent hundreds of dollars on professional pitch-correction software and countless hours trying to pair it with CD lessons, but the setup was cumbersome and impractical. A year later, I searched again — still nothing. So I decided to build it myself. Before long, I left my well-paying engineering job — where I led teams developing advanced embedded software — and began creating Erol Singer’s Studio.

While the app initially began as Windows software, I ported it to iOS in 2011 to launch first in the booming iPhone app market in 2012. Although many voice-training apps have appeared since, Erol Singer’s Studio still stands out for its depth and quality. Thanks to recommendations from voice teachers and singers like you, it’s been adopted by countless people looking to improve their voices — all with almost no marketing. Every year of development has been worth it for the thousands of singers it has helped.

And my own singing? My pitch improved quickly after building the app, but more importantly, my voice quality transformed. I even developed a natural vibrato — something I once thought was faked by wobbling the voice. Now I know better. If you want a natural vibrato, focus on the breathing lessons in the app, along with the lip- and tongue-trill exercises that are staples of vocal training. Take advantage of the app’s two unique pitch-detection modes, which automatically activate during trill lessons. And always follow the on-screen prompts — you might be surprised at how well we anticipate the mistakes you’ll make.

I hope you find the app as useful as I have. It was built to be helpful, instructive, and fun. Happy singing!