An App for Instant Transposition on iPad, Contributing to the New Business Launch

Challenges

In response to the accelerating digitalization of society and the widespread adoption of e-books, DNP, a long-time leader in the printing industry and an early participant in the e-book business, embarked on a next-generation music score distribution and sales business as a new venture. As part of this, they initially focused on developing an electronic music score app that could instantly transpose (move the entire piece of music to a different pitch to match the instrument's range) on a tablet. Traditionally, performers of various instruments had to manually transpose on paper, which involved extensive work, making the realization of a function that could instantly transpose using digital technology a high priority.

Solutions

"To reduce development time and production costs, DNP requested the effective use of a paid library compatible with MusicXML (a global file format standard for electronic music scores). Monstarlab conducted technical research on several candidate libraries to determine if they could meet the product's requirements. While proceeding with development using the selected library based on the research, the hurdle became catching up in a highly specialized area. The engineers faced challenges such as 'difficulty in seeing user needs and understanding preferred UI' and 'inability to judge the accuracy of transposed data.' The solution was to have performers actually use the test model and conduct interviews. Accuracy was improved by repeating the process of feature implementation, testing, and feedback.