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The author

About Maik Krohm

Classical guitarist, ensemble member at a music school in Cuxhaven and self-employed developer. I write both the text and the software on this site myself.

Who is behind Maikstrings

My name is Maik Krohm. I live in Cuxhaven, and I write the texts and the software on this site myself. My instrument is the classical guitar. I have played in an ensemble at a music school for twenty years, and I have taken part in various music courses to pursue my interest in music – as a musician who practises and rehearses himself.

Alongside this, I am a self-employed developer of apps and websites. For ten years I have been publishing what comes of it online – accessible from anywhere, in several languages. The two together are the real reason for this site: I don’t write about music theory because I’ve read up on it, but because, while playing and rehearsing, I keep noticing exactly where it gets in the way.

Why I do this

In practising and rehearsing, the obstacles repeat themselves with remarkable regularity. Almost everyone confuses the fourth and the fifth at first, because both sound open and hollow. Almost everyone reaches for the next melody note too early and lets go of the bass that should have been held for another three beats. Almost everyone practises at the target tempo instead of the tempo at which it still comes out cleanly.

These are not gaps in knowledge that get closed by looking something up. They are habits, and the only thing that works against a habit is repetition with immediate feedback. That is precisely what software is good at, and precisely why I build it: an exercise module that tells you within five seconds whether that was a third or a fourth does something a book cannot. The explanatory text still belongs with it — neither is worth much without the other.

The third ingredient is the sheet music. A child who has grasped how a scale is built wants to play something afterwards. So there is an archive of public-domain sheets here: cleanly engraved, free, and copyable for a whole group. I have seen too many bad copies of copies in too many rehearsal rooms.

How I work

Three principles I hold to, because the opposite annoys me as a user:

  • No sign-up. Nothing on this site asks for an account. Your practice progress lives in your browser, not on my server.
  • Offline wherever possible. The apps run without an internet connection. A tuner that first goes looking for a network is useless in a rehearsal room.
  • No audio leaves the device. The browser tuner analyses the microphone signal locally. Nothing is transmitted and nothing is stored.

The rest is funded by advertising. I would rather somebody saw an ad than have a child with a recorder run into a paywall.

What has come out of it

  • Learning pages on the circle of fifths, scales, intervals, chords, rhythm, reading music and ear training — freely readable, no app required.
  • Thirteen practice modules in the browser, from interval ear training to rhythmic dictation.
  • Tools for everyday use at the instrument: tuner, metronome, chord calculator, capo table.
  • A sheet-music archive of more than 400 public-domain sheets, from Sor and Giuliani to German folk song.
  • Three Android apps: Circle of Fifths Auto for musicians, Klang-Regenbogen for children from six, Klang-Spektrum for learners from ten.

All of it exists in German, English and Spanish. That is more work than one language, but the questions are the same in Cuxhaven as in Valencia.

Errors and comments

If you spot a mistake here — a wrong chord, a crooked explanation, a dead link — please write to me. I correct that sort of thing gladly and quickly; a page about music theory with something wrong on it is worse than no page at all.