A Music Learning App is Guiding Irish Musicians From Practice to Stage
We built a phygital music learning app that turns digital practice into real-world performance. Learners submit recordings, get feedback, and progress faster, while creators manage teams and engage communities. Discover how we made music learning seamless and scalable.
About Client and Key Challenges
Gabe Moynagh is the founder of TuneClub, a former CEO of a cybersecurity firm, and a passionate Irish fiddle player. He wanted learning to be purposeful, where practice leads to feedback and feedback ends on stage.
The challenge was that no platform provided this kind of structured, end-to-end instrument learning. Most apps stopped at practice, leaving learners without a clear path to perform and prove their progress.
Gabe wanted a platform combining MasterClass’s structured learning, Patreon’s creator-driven community, and Scoolinary’s hands-on approach. He also wanted learners to easily access curated content and inspiration, like on YouTube.
Simply put, his vision was a learning app where users progress through defined pathways, receive actionable feedback, and connect digital practice with real-world performance.
Gabe had previously approached another agency to build an app but was not satisfied with their UX work and wanted a streaming media team that could add value. That’s when we came into the picture.
Key challenges we set out to solve:
Close the loop: practice to submit to creator review to perform
Give learners structure: pathways, milestones, proof of progress
Support creators: provide easy tools for reviewing learner submissions, giving feedback quickly, and managing their community efficiently
Make media reliable: smooth A/V, speed and pitch tools, low battery impact
Simplify infra: adaptive streaming, thumbnails, captions without custom plumbing
Keep things safe: clear roles (Learner, Creator, Admin), private submissions, PII controls
Thus, we built TuneClub to connect digital preparation with real-world events.
For Gabe, what mattered most was closing the gap between digital learning and real-world performance. Learners needed ways to progress, creators needed streamlined tools, and admins needed safeguards to keep the community safe and scalable.
PlatformsWeb App and Mobile App
Duration12 weeks
IndustryMedia and Communication
Partnership Goal
According to the client’s vision, the platform needed to make instrument learning purposeful, helping learners practice with intent, receive meaningful feedback, and perform confidently in live events. At the same time, it had to be fast, intuitive, and scalable, providing creators with workflows that save time and grow with their community.
We worked together like this:
Defined the learning loop: Focused the initial version around practice, submission, review, and performance to ensure structured progression for learners.
Rapid UX iteration: Tested and refined the experience in visible, incremental steps to ensure usability and engagement.
Media infrastructure optimization: Integrated Mux for adaptive streaming, thumbnails, and captions while simplifying backend complexity and improving playback quality.
Unified media API: Implemented a flexible media abstraction layer within the mobile app that hides platform-specific playback implementations. This allowed faster iterations, smoother playback, and consistent performance across iOS and Android without disrupting other parts of the app.
Creator operations tools: Designed workflows for approvals, custom feedback questions, publishing rules, and team role management.
Early guardrails: Set limits such as online-only sessions, single-device sync, and audio-first pitch control to ensure quality and reliability.
With this approach, the platform will enable learners to progress from practice to performance, give creators efficient and scalable tools, and allow admins to maintain safety and trust across the community.
Before
- The idea existed only as design mockups, with no working product in place.
- The initial designs didn’t yet define clear roles for creators or admins, making collaboration difficult to visualize.
- The learning experience was fragmented, and community engagement was low.
After
- Structured pathways with linked events.
- Learners can practice and submit recordings for feedback.
- Learners can showcase their progress in live events or recitals.
- Built-in practice tools for beat guidance, adjustable speed and pitch, and session recording.
- Creator approvals allow creators to review and approve learner submissions before they go live.
- Team roles ensure different team members have clear responsibilities to keep operations organized.
- Activity log keeps a record of actions taken in the app so admins can track changes and maintain accountability.
- Creator approvals, team roles, activity log.
- In-app community and 1:1 chat with points to reward progress.
- Smooth media streaming and admin monitoring.
Learners signed up and actively engaged in structured pathways
Feedback reviews submitted by creators during early usage
Practice sessions completed by learners in the first 60 days
Learners signed up and actively engaged in structured pathways
Feedback reviews submitted by creators during early usage
Team Formation
We assembled a lean, cross-functional team to handle discovery, design, development, and quality assurance end to end.
Project Manager: Owned the roadmap, scope, and client communication.
Mobile App Developer: Built the learner app.
Full-Stack Developer: Developed creator and admin portals, including business logic, database, and admin interfaces.
Frontend Developer: Engineered responsive interfaces and user flows using React and TypeScript.
Backend Developer: Implemented APIs, authentication, media workflows, and platform services.
Software Tester: Ran manual and automated tests to ensure reliable releases.
UX/UI Designer: Designed app flows and visual interfaces.
Technical Lead: Defined architecture and removed technical roadblocks.
DevOps Engineer: Automated builds and deployments.
Work ran in an agile, iterative process. We prioritized small, testable increments, validated quickly, and refined based on real feedback.
Asana handled task management and progress tracking end to end, while Slack was our daily hub for fast decisions and updates with both the client and internal team. Google Meet was used for live discussions, reviews, and regular check-ins.
Throughout the project, we paid close attention to detail during testing, often catching issues before they were reported, and implemented user feedback rapidly.
This approach enabled us to continually enhance the user experience without compromising delivery speed, while ensuring the platform remained reliable, scalable, and aligned with the client’s vision.
The TuneClub platform uses a carefully chosen tech stack to ensure scalability and reliability. This music learning app supports growth while keeping performance smooth.
Our Partnership
Our partnership focused on one goal: making learning purposeful from start to finish.
We began with a simple version that let learners practice, get feedback, perform, and explore curated content and inspiration, much like discovering tutorials on YouTube. This ensured a focused, achievable solution that delivered real value quickly.
Work moved in short, iterative cycles with clear priorities, visible progress, and fast responses to user feedback. Mux powered adaptive streaming with automated thumbnails and captions, reducing battery use and stabilizing performance while we focused on features like metronome, pitch and speed controls, clips, notes, and recordings.
The mobile app was built in Flutter and Dart with Material design for a consistent, performance-optimized experience. Creators and Super Admins used a responsive web portal for reviewing submissions, managing teams, tracking activity, and sending notifications. On the backend, AWS Cognito handled authentication, S3 managed secure storage, and Nx tooling kept web and mobile development tightly organized.
Quality was a top priority. We tested early, documented edge cases, and fixed issues before they affected users. The rewards system, controlled by creators, reinforced the core practice, feedback, and performance loop.
Enroll in experiences and events
Learners browse curated experiences and request to join. Creators can optionally set dates and locations. This ties digital preparation to real workshops, festivals, and jam sessions, making practice purposeful with a clear place to perform and learn.
Structured learning pathways
Content follows a clear hierarchy: Experience, Sub-experience, Learning Pathway, Modules, and Tracks or Challenges with attached resources. This structure gives learners milestones and creators a consistent way to organize multi-format material across genres and skill levels.
Practice workspace tools
During playback, learners use metronome, pitch and speed control, track clipping, and personal notes. Tools are designed to reduce friction, support focused repetitions, and help learners isolate tough passages without leaving the learning flow.
Upload and practice with any audio
Learners can bring their own audio into the app and practice alongside it. This keeps practice relevant to personal goals while using the same timing, pitch, and clipping tools available for official course tracks.
Clips and notes on tracks
Learners create short clips of tricky sections and attach notes for later review. Clips and notes remain linked to the original track, helping learners return to exactly the right moment and context for deliberate practice.
Personal recordings
Learners can record practice sessions inside the app, rename and manage them, and review progress over time. Recordings connect directly to the learning context, making it easier to compare attempts and refine technique.
Discovery, search, and filters
Learners explore popular experiences, search by category, genre, tags, performer names, or dates, and preview limited details before joining. This helps learners find the right pathway faster and increases enrollment quality.
Community channels
Each experience includes channels like All, General, QnA, and pathway-specific feeds. Learners and creators share updates, ask questions, and react, keeping discussions organized and close to the learning context.
Practice Studio and My Tunes
Studio holds bookmarked course tracks for quick access. My Tunes collects personal recordings, including imported files. Both areas centralize what matters most to each learner, supporting consistent, focused practice sessions.
Custom notifications per experience
Creators send targeted notifications tied to specific experiences. Announcements, deadlines, and new content drops reach the right learners at the right time, improving engagement without spamming the broader community.
Sequential or non-sequential modules
Creators choose whether modules must be completed in order or can be taken freely. This flexibility supports both structured curricula and exploratory learning styles across different instruments and levels.
What Happened Next - Results
In the first 60 days, TuneClub welcomed 75 learners, with 45 converting to paid users. Learners devoted an average of 65 minutes a day across multiple practice sessions, recording their progress, submitting performances, and receiving feedback, slowly but surely turning practice into real-world confidence.
One of the biggest challenges was keeping media playback reliable across devices while handling real-time submissions and feedback. To overcome this, we implemented a flexible Media API abstraction layer in the mobile app.
This solution hid platform-specific playback details, allowing us to iterate rapidly without disrupting learners’ experience. The result was smooth, low-latency performance that let musicians focus on their craft rather than technology.
We also built tools that empowered creators to manage content, approve submissions, and engage their communities efficiently. Watching learners submit recordings and seeing creators respond with thoughtful feedback was inspiring, as it turned a digital platform into a vibrant, supportive music community.
These experiences shaped TuneClub into more than just a scalable music learning platform. It became a place where learners could grow with purpose, feel their progress, and step onto a stage with confidence. Creators could mentor without friction, and admins could maintain trust and safety, all while the platform stayed fast, reliable, and enjoyable.
