This Musical Diary App Will Record Your Feels

The practice of journaling has many amazing health benefits, from reducing stress to processing emotions, but sometimes words are just not enough to express our complex feelings. Enter Cove — a new music diary app that will actually make you look forward to taking the time to capture and express your emotions. Say goodbye to the days of hiding your diary under the mattress so your little brother won't find it. This iOS app, developed by design studio Humane Engineering, allows you to put down the pen and paper and process your feelings in the soothing medium of electronic music.

Using Cove, you are the composer of your emotional landscape. There are four basic moods to choose from — playful, calm, longing, and struggling. These act as the backdrop to your song, and give it a major or minor chord differentiations. From these palates, you can create music loops with a variety of different instruments and sounds. The artful display allows the user to drop a stones into waves with the tap of a finger. The movement of the digital water over the stones creates notes or chords. As more and more stones are dropped melodies are created. Ivor Williams, co-founder of the app, explained the design in an interview with Wired, “You’re dropping stones in water, as it were, to create your own personal cove — your own private spaces."

After completing your music, you can further elaborate on your feelings by writing a note, or you can simply add predetermined emotion "tags." Cove also gives you the ability to share these musical creations by exporting and sending them through text. Want to let your friend know you've had a rough day, this app could make communicating your mood a little easier.

Cove was originally designed with teenagers in mind. The app seeks to guide them through a difficult time in their lives by helping teens capture emotions in a fun and truthful way. As an adult with plenty of daily stressors, Cove can also be significantly calming and helpful. Announcing the release of Cove, Humane Engineering wrote on their website, "Cove is purposefully designed to de-stigmatize emotional health problems, and is unlike a traditional music-maker... Relating feelings and mood to music is less imposing than writing notes or talking. " Cove is available for free download through the iTunes app store.

You can learn more about Cove by checking out this video:

Images: cove-app.com