CeolMate - new practice companion app for ITM

Tech
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Hi fellow Chiff&Fipplers, Kirill here -– Estonia’s biggest Irish trad fan, amateur tenor banjo/wooden flute/bodhran player (with a tinwhistle/low whistle background dating back to old C&F times :), and a beginner trad teacher. Wanted to share something I’ve been working on since mid-December 2025!

Let me introduce a new trad practice companion app called CeolMate – it helps me never forget my tunes again, using same spaced repetition principles as language learning apps.

You open it up whenever you sit down to practice with your instrument (I use it on my phone). It suggests which tunes you should be practicing today based on how much time you can spare, and offers essential music tools like metronome/drones/note taking, practice timers, self-ratings, ABC/sheet display and playback.

It also provides a robust repertoire organizer, integration with TheSession/IrishTune.info (import your entire tunebook and your sets in a couple clicks!), supports players of multiple instruments, allows to see shared tunes with your friends, send them encouragement when they practice, and more!

CeolMate works on any phone/computer/tablet – it’s a web app (like ABCtools and FolkFriend), so no install from any App Store is ever needed. Just add a shortcut to your screen from your browser. It even works offline.

Would love your advice and ideas on how to make it more useful for YOUR trad practice – especially if you’ve been using practice apps before (e.g. Andante/Modacity, or even good old IrishTune.info’s Practice Machine)

Note: Core features are FREE. Resource-hungry features (like storing your recordings & using AI coaching) will be paid whenever those are made available. Thanks!

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Thanks for sharing. I have been looking for apps for practice assistance recently. Particularly ones with rhythm guitar or bodhran backing tracks for common meters – jigs, reels, etc. I find that when playing on my own, I adopt slightly idiosyncratic timing…often slowing slightly where passages are difficult. Or that I learn tunes in chunks rather than in a flowing whole. Playing along with tunes is, of course, great. But having a strong rhythm track to keep me honest seems like it would also be helpful. These are pretty common in other musical areas – like backing tracks for blues guitar soloing. Anyway, have not tried your app yet, but will do so. Sounds like a helpful aid.