This app is helping people with partial hearing impairments hit the right notes!

Pune developer Sandeep Ranade’s app Naadsadhana app is enabling people with hearing impairments sing Indian classical music. Here’s how it works.

California-based motivational coach Dr Anu Singh is a trained classical singer who regularly holds public performances. She was crushed when she found herself occasionally hitting the wrong note due to hearing loss.

“My hearing loss increased gradually”, says Dr Singh who specialises in family counselling and therapy. “I started feeling depressed when some people would say things like you were melodious, but not hitting some notes perfectly”.

Dr Singh discovered Naadsadhana, the app developed by Pune-based software engineer Sandeep Ranade, which helps classical singers hit the right notes. It also has a smart swaramandal (auto harp), a critical instrument in classical music.

First app to make Indian classical music accessible

Sandeep, who is also a Hindustani classical vocalist, composer and educator, tweaked the app to make it accessible for those with vision impairments after feedback.

The app was designed to provide visual biofeedback to those with normal hearing and people with partial hearing loss as well. The visual biofeedback helps build kinaesthetic muscle memory that produces a note. This means remembering where the tongue is, position of the jaw, mouth, lips, neck, etc. This allows one to not only position the note by hearing it, but through other modalities as well. What is satisfying is the validation from users with partial hearing impairment. – Sandeep Ranade, Developer, Naadsadhana app

The features like the visual biofeedback and in-ear monitoring helped Dr Singh regain confidence in her singing and note accuracy.

“Other apps just give me a background but Naadsadhana shows me where I am off. So, I don’t have to unlearn everything. This, she adds, is a critical feature for musicians, many of whom tend to suffer from hearing loss with age. “The app has helped me to start singing again”.

App gives feedback in real time

Naadsadhana, says Sandeep, can help people with partial hearing loss, those feeling loss of certain frequencies, and even those with tone deafness. “I have a few users with hearing impairments who say they are getting more accurate with their notes. The app is now accessible to people with many different abilities like colour blindness, visual and hearing impairments”.

For Dr Singh, the added attraction is that the app helps preserve Indian culture.

“This is especially the case for people who live away from India and find it hard to do sadhana or practice. Naadsadhana has the whole swarmandal which creates an ambience. This brings back the culture of India and the mood of the raag gets enhanced”.







This app is only available on the App store for iPhone. Click here to download.

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• This music teacher’s video tutorials are bringing songs alive for people who are deaf & hard of hearing