This evening, at 7:36pm, whilst I was sitting on the couch getting ready to tackle some last minute admin before heading to bed, I noticed an email sitting in my inbox from iTunes Store. My gut reaction was that it was spam, but upon closer inspection, I realised that it was an Apple-generated invoice on my behalf for sales of Passing Notes on the App Store.
It’s the first time I’ve ever received money for software I’ve built. And that’s a big deal for me.
Ever since I was a kid, I was into computers and the web. I used GeoCities to build fan pages for TV shows I was into at the time.1 This was my introduction to HTML, and I still have the muscle memory for basic HTML thanks to these sites. During high school, I became heavily interested in video production. It helped that Dad was a cameraman, and I had the cameras, lighting and computers at home at my disposal. I used all sorts of weird video editing software in the early days, before eventually settling on Final Cut Pro. I even tried to learn Objective-C on multiple occasions so that I could write iPhone apps, but never pursued it long enough for it to stick.
Without a doubt, these were all hobbies. I ended up making my living from playing, writing and teaching music. Ironically, music is the hobby for many people, including many in the tech world. Everything changed when I suggested to my good friend, Nic Jeffries, that we build an app to help peripatetic music teachers manage scheduling and invoicing. After receiving our first quote of $250,000, I suggested to Jeffo that I try to build something myself.
Enter the no-code movement.
Using a tech stack of Zapier for logic, Airtable as the database, Stripe for payments, and Webflow for UI, I built a web app for music tutors that would charge a parent’s payment method when a music lesson finished, in the same way that your card gets charged as soon as you step out of an Uber. There are many parallels between making software and making music. When you create something that works, be it hearing your composition performed that you’ve poured hours into, or seeing your app do what it was supposed to do for the first time, both are equally addictive and emotional moments.
The advent of no-code tools meant I was able to dip my toes in the water of web and app development in a way that was previously restrictive. Almost nothing remains of the original Pocket Tutor now, as it has gone through two more substantial changes to its core. Whilst the no-code movement opened the door for aspiring developers, nothing could have prepared us for LLMs. I went from asking ChatGPT for help with writing code snippets for Pocket Tutor to entrusting Codex to write entire apps for me.
Everyone has an opinion on AI. Some are vehemently opposed to even the mention of it, others are having it complete their homework. Whichever side you’re on, there isn’t any escaping it, and like any invention that has global reach and impact (I’m looking at you, iPhone), you, the user, can use the tool responsibly or irresponsibly, for good or ill. I have chosen to use it to bridge two of my worlds.
Passing Notes was my first attempt at an iOS app. Part of making it was to see whether I could. Making a website is one thing - anyone can publish something to the web. But to get an app onto the App Store used to mean knowing how to code yourself, or spending tens of thousands of dollars to have someone that knew how to code build it for you. The last few weeks have been a wild collection of ‘firsts’:
- I built an iPad app!
- Apple approved my iPad app, which meant I had an app in the App Store!
- People paid actual money to buy my app!
And then we get to this evening’s ‘first’.
- Apple paid me for my app.
Now, admittedly, Apple paid me about $25. I’m not about to go out and buy a Jony Ive designed Ferrari anytime soon. But that’s about 12 people that spent money on an app I built. Receiving this email has sparked something. Perhaps this could be more than just a hobby.
I tell my students all the time that I don’t expect them to go on to become professional musicians, that’s not why they play an instrument in the school band. One percent of those students might, but the rest will go on to become lawyers, accountants, physiotherapists — occupations that musicians will rely on to defend them, balance their books, and correct their bodies.
And do you know what else musicians rely on? Software. A lot of software. Here’s a typical week for me:
- Apple Music to show a student a recording
- Tempo and Tunable as my metronome and tuner
- Pocket Tutor to schedule and get paid by my students
- ForScore to read sheet music
- ScoreSort to manage my PDF library of band music2
- Passing Notes to quickly write and share musical ideas with students
There’s more! Email, file sharing, gig promotion, band program management, accounting. And then there’s the software that is yet to be built. And that’s where I hope I come in. As the saying goes,
“Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.”
Well, music and computers are two of my happy places. I wonder what happens if I combine two jobs I love?