An instrument lab for the shō and its eleven aitake
iOSFor questions, bug reports, or feedback, please contact us by email:
What is Shō Harmony?
A synthesized shō — the Japanese free-reed mouth organ — you can play by hand or through its eleven traditional aitake tone clusters, with a chord sequencer, a Transitions map of how the clusters connect to one another, an ear-training quiz, and a Theory guide to the instrument and its gagaku tradition.
What is an aitake?
Aitake (合竹, "gathered bamboo") are the shō's eleven standard tone clusters — fixed combinations of pipes sounded together, each with its own name and character. Play lets you sound any of the eleven, combine several, or tap individual pipes for a fully custom cluster.
What is the Transitions tab?
A map of all eleven aitake as a web of connections: the brighter and thicker a line between two clusters, the more pipes they share, and the smoother a shō player's fingering moves between them. Tap through it to build a progression, then send it straight to the Sequencer.
Can I save and export a progression?
Yes — the Sequencer saves progressions on-device, and exports either a Standard MIDI File or a rendered audio file you can share from your device.
Does Shō Harmony work inside GarageBand, Logic, or AUM?
Yes — it includes an Audio Unit (AUv3) instrument plugin that plays the same synthesized shō from MIDI input inside a compatible host, with an Aitake Lock parameter that plays a full cluster from any key, plus Attack and Release exposed as automatable parameters.
Are the sounds real recordings?
No — every pipe is synthesized on-device (no shō samples are bundled or streamed), tuned to match the instrument's real range and reed timbre as closely as a synthesized voice can.
Shō Harmony collects no personal data, requires no account, and does not connect to the internet. All synthesis, playback, and the AUv3 plugin run entirely on-device. Progressions you save are stored locally on your device only, using Apple's standard on-device settings storage (UserDefaults) — never uploaded, never shared with any third party, and never used for tracking or advertising of any kind. The app requests no access to your microphone, camera, contacts, location, or any other protected data, and includes no analytics or crash-reporting frameworks.
Shō Harmony is an independent educational project. The aitake pitch content shown in the app and used by the instrument follows Kris Momii, "A Transformational Approach to Gesture in Shō Performance," Music Theory Online 26.4 (2020), cross-referenced with general secondary sources on the shō and gagaku. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or produced in association with any gagaku institution, ensemble, or performer.