Dear diary

London – When dealing with emotions, we might write them down or talk to someone, but Cove is a new app that turns music into a journal.

• With Cove, users can make music that reflects how they feel
• Created by Ivor Williams and Alex Rothera of Humane Engineering

The app enables users to choose from six base emotions – playful, calm, longing, clouded, gentle and struggling – which provide the tone for a song, determining whether more major or minor keys are used. Users can then create a musical composition, layering base notes with melodies to produce a unique song that reflects the way they are feeling. They can then save the song, and write down any associated feelings, keeping it as a digital journal of how they felt that day.

‘Music journalling – or specifically the creation of music to capture a mood – can be effective, for young people in particular, because they often lack the confidence or abilities to convey complex feelings in writing and words that carry emotional weight,’ Alex Rothera, co-founder of Humane Engineering tells LS:N Global. ‘Compared to writing, music can be more intuitive, changeable and fluid. The act of self-expression through music can be a powerful exercise.’