GeoSonic is a recently updated app that has hit the iOS app family, adding to the many music experience apps currently available. This app, however, is not a radio station that you personalize, but rather, a sort of a music box type of app that randomly plays music based on the classic solfeggio music scale. To enhance the experience, a continuous wave, burst or pulse of geometric shapes, very much similar to Spirograph creations, fill the screen and move to the music.
The app can be purchased for $0.99, and offers a variety of sounds that connect with the images it displays. The colors are bright and the movement, fast. When you first download the app, it comes to a screen with a title. It does not automatically start the app itself, which I found out after waiting patiently for a few minutes. After tapping the screen, the app began to download and start.
The app is based off the concept of mandala, or a circular representation that is supposed to bring focus and peace. In this app, the mandala looks very much like a something one could create in the famed Spirograph craft game from Hasbro. The image is set on your screen by the app and can be altered somewhat using options that lie on the left and top borders of the screen.
Options include:
- Pulsing the image, so that is grows and shrinks to the beat of the music
- Putting it into a warp, so that it looks like it is racing through space
- No movement at all, so that it simply floats in space, with stars slowly orbiting around it
- The type of image can be changed by changing the Chakra, which is the icon of a meditating monk at the very top
- Saving or loading “chakras” you have customized
- Turning rotation on or off
- Hypno setting, which moves the image in a more meditative motion
- Set your own colors as the art transforms
- Changing sounds
I have to admit, that when I first downloaded the app, I thought I would be doing the drawing and creating, listening to how the music changes as I made changes. However, this is more of a passive app where you simple watch and listen, and make small adjustments when you want to. You are not actually drawing the art. The other disappointment was that the music was not as calming as I expected. Some of the sounds were a bit annoying, and were not conducive to relaxation or meditation, as I expected. The images were also a bit too bright to help bring focus and inner peace. Many of them seemed like they could incite a migraine.
If you are thinking of purchasing this app, be aware that it is a passive one, where you simply sit back and listen, and if you desire, partake in the images that appear before you. If you are looking for an app that has some action and like techno-sounding notes, then GeoSonic may serve your purpose well.