App | I Agree With Jonny

The Road to the
iOS App Store.

12|Bar began about six years ago as a solution to a problem I was having with creating, saving, and transposing songs for the band I was playing in.

I created designed and directed development on this iOS app from the initial idea to its final launch. After multiple designs and redesigns, 12|Bar is now officially offered in the iOS App Store.

It’s a story of hard work & dedication.

I went from being one person with an idea to the manager of a five-person team directing my dream to come to life.

The amount of money, time, effort, and heartache the project required may have deterred many people, but I’m sure glad I persevered through the challenges. I’d like to tell the story of how 12|Bar came to be. Let’s go!

The Road to the
iOS App Store.

12|Bar began about six years ago as a solution to a problem I was having creating, saving and transposing songs for the band I was playing in.

I created designed and direted develoment on this iOS app from the initial idea to it’s final launch. Despite multiple designs and redesigns, 12|Bar is now officially offered in the iOS App Store.

It’s a story of hard work & dedication.

I went from being one person with an idea to the manager of a five-person team directing my dream to come to life.

The amount of money, time, effort, and heartache the project required may have deterred many people, but I’m sure glad I persevered through the challenges. I’d like to tell the story of how 12|Bar came to be. Let’s go!

Skip the Story

These are some of the notes I took as I was putting ideas on paper.

From these notes, I began laying out some initial interface designs. I knew that I wanted some kind of Drag and Drop interface, but I didn’t know exactly how that might work.

I completed quite a few concepts before landing on the idea that would eventually become 12|Bar.

I began looking at interfaces that other popular apps were using at the time and stared adapting things that I liked from them. As I moved through these designs, it became clearer that I would need to create a solution that was unique to 12|Bar.

Below are just a few of those first designs.

It was around this time that I invited my friend and fellow muscian Rich Williams to join me on this journey. Rich is a web deveopler and has an MBA degree so he was a perfect complement to the skills I had.

We had phone calls every morning with our developers and talked about interface ideas and marketing schemes with each other.

One of the biggest struggles was in the area of funding. I didnt want to become beholdened to investors, and the decision was made to reach out to the crowd funding community and launch a Kickstarter campaign.

We had a really great experience getting funded on Kickstarter and even became a Kickstarter Staff Pick. It was a fanstastic experience!

We launched on Kickstarter on
Sept 12, 2004 and within the next 30 days,
we had raised over $12,000 from friends, family, and strangers from across the United States and even from a few countries around the world!

This is our video and our backer rewards offerings.

12|Bar finally makes it home!

From beginning development in July of 2014, to Acceptance in the iOS App Store in April of 2015, it took less than 1 year to go from essentially nothing to a fully funtional application.

It was a long road from the initial idea to the final product, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I learned alot about design, UI/UX, how to lead a team, and how to handle adversities. I’m so proud of what we were able to accomplish.

Videos.

I created these videos to showcase 12|Bar for potential users. The animated video was created for use as the preview video in the iOS App Store.

The other two videos were created to show the progress 12|Bar made over the course of its development period.

Enjoy the show!

Screen Layouts.

Dragging and dropping chords is so much fun, and creating the set lists is easy and painless. You can change the key of any chart after you’ve created it, and 12Bar automatically transposes the song for you. You can modify each chord just the way you want. Separate your song into sections. Make notes on charts and sets. Search your songs quickly and accurately. Perform your sets!

Create, edit, share, and collect chord charts for reference while practicing or performing. Used by professional bandleaders and music teachers to create, share, and perform.

Use as a learning tool, performing on stage, and in the studio. Guitar, piano, keyboard, organ, bass, ukulele, and banjo, acoustic and electric.