This March was an exciting month, as it marked ten years since Ten Kettles was launched. I’d like to share some thoughts on the journey so far, what’s to come, and what’s changed over the past ten years—more so than I ever expected.

Who We Are

First, if you’re new to the Ten Kettles blog, welcome! Ten Kettles is a small (very small) company that’s all about music education. The vehicle for that music education is apps, and we have three main ones: Waay for music theory, hearEQ for ear training, and BeatMirror for building your inner metronome.

My name’s Alex, and together with a friendly half-beagle, I write the content and build the apps. Ten years ago life was quite different: I was a research engineer working in some very cool research labs while teaching, playing, and performing music at every opportunity.

But something different was on the horizon. Once the idea for Ten Kettles was born, I was all in. I bought my first Mac, learned Apple’s programming language, and starting honing my skills. When it felt like I just couldn’t not do Ten Kettles anymore, I left my (otherwise wonderful) job in 2014 and here we are.

“Awesome! I bought this well-built app a week ago and I’ve already learned so much. I haven’t been able to put it down. It effectively demystifies music theory – very inspiring!”
—EBSDDC from 🇨🇦 (Feb. 27, 2024) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Music Theory, Memory, and More

What’s got me really excited lately is writing new courses for Waay. After Progressions I and II (written and released during the height of the pandemic), Waay recently got two more courses: Intervals I and II. And while writing those courses, there was some serious progress made on several more courses. Keep an eye out for developments on this—and for our other apps too!

But another big step forward for Waay had to do with something I’ve been very passionate about lately: memory. Motivated by language learning, I started diving into the science and practice of proper memory retention, and it was like a whole new world opened up. (There’s a second chapter to this story, which I’ll save for another day.)

Waay’s Practice Space aims to bring that world of memory into music theory. When you learn a new skill in Waay, a very special and intentional review schedule is setup for you. At first, you review the skill a couple times a week, but by following the schedule you end up retaining the new skill for months, years, and longer—so it’s there when you need it.

So what’s next? I don’t want to get into too much detail, but there’s a new update for Waay around the corner that adds in even more exercises to the Melodies and Chords courses. Then, before diving into something a little bigger (!), I’ll be integrating some really neat changes into how the Practice Space works. Sign up for the newsletter to find out more.

“So grateful I found Waay! I’ve not completed the full course yet but this is by far the most accessible and intuitive music theory course I’ve done. It feels “sticky” – as in you want to come back and earn more stars on the practice exercises – and it’s presented in a simple, clear way. I’m actually quite addicted…Finally, the fact that this is made by a sole developer and that he’s friendly and available to answer any questions you have once you start is also wonderful. Well done, Alex!”
—musicianess from 🇬🇧 (Mar. 13, 2024) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Unexpected Developments

One thing I didn’t expect ten years ago was how my feelings about what we call “tech” have changed. At first, my initial excitement about smartphones, social media, and the modern tech landscape started to mellow. Then I started having questions that didn’t have satisfying answers, and those questions started to pile up.

Over the years, that changing attitude led to changing behaviours, both professionally and personally. Professionally, it has meant saying goodbye to more and more of the “big tech” ecosystem (e.g., no more Google email & analytics), removing third-party frameworks* in the apps, refining the values behind our marketing and design, and more.

Personally, it has meant much more limited smartphone/screen use—and an explosion of interest in topics and activities outside of that world. And on both fronts it has meant stepping away, almost entirely, from social media**. All-in-all these changes have felt like the right choice for Ten Kettles—and for me—and they’ve felt pretty empowering and exciting too.

“Awesome! I like to use BeatMirror during band practice. I set the bpm for the song we’re about to play and keep a casual eye on it to make sure we’re not getting carried away…So I can glance over periodically and check that we’re still within 5 or so BPM of where we should be. I can also check the graph after the fact and see where we wobble a bit and where we lock in, etc. Good tool.”
—pabs007 from 🇺🇸 (Feb. 12, 2024) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Coda

Ten Kettles’ apps have always been different. We don’t do any shady data collection, we don’t put ads in the apps, and we don’t put extra stuff in the code that compromises your privacy. These are educational apps and, after all, good education is about trust. And that trust needs to be earned. I want our apps to do that.

It’s been a wonderful ten years with Ten Kettles and the Ten Kettles community has made it possible! I love designing and coding our apps. I love writing the curriculum for Waay, the tempo-detection algorithm for BeatMirror, and trying to come up with just the right exercise structures for hearEQ.

And another great part about Ten Kettles is that I get to hear directly from users: helping them through conceptual roadblocks in music theory, providing advice on developing an ear training discipline, or just chatting about the minutiae of tempo.

So thank you for making Ten Kettles possible and thanks for all your thoughtful messages and conversations over the years. And as always, please get in touch to share your thoughts—or just to say hi! –Alex

*What are “third-party frameworks”? Many apps insert code written by big companies into their apps—code that can be genuinely useful for the app developer, but can sometimes really compromise user privacy.

**This started as a trial in 2023, and while I’ll continue to reassess, it’s felt like a good choice so far.