Hey, it is Cody here again for my weekly installment of me learning how to play guitar. This week I tried the app Yousician. Besides being difficult to spell, I was not a huge fan for a couple of reasons that I will cover below. Beyond that, the learning process as a whole is going well, my fret-playing fingers are toughening up. I have made it a goal to play for 10 minutes every day and have stuck to that goal. I have a printout of beginner chords hanging in my office here that I try to work through.
The Bad:
Right upon downloading the app and opening it for the first time, I was very displeased. As an aside, there is nothing in the world I hate more than when companies are either A) not upfront about the cost of a product or B) are deceptive in getting you to pay or give credit card information. This app broke both rules, it was very difficult, dare I say impossible to figure out what the cost of the app was going to be. This frustrates me,
Free to use under creative commons license with attribution to: “Daniel Oberhaus, 2019”
because if you have a good product, than stand behind the price you think it is worth! Next upon opening the app they made it sound like, that in order to get a week for free or do the trial, you had to give your credit card info and if you didn’t cancel by whatever date you would be billed $149.99. I clicked around for a bit longer and finally figured out how to skip this step (I still have Amazon Prime because of a similar tactic, lets face it you never want to be like Bezos. Ever). Typically this is when I would uninstall an app and never look back, however in the name of science and my blog I pushed on to actually try the app. The number one thing I disliked is that they did not follow the traditional tablature notes that I have seen every where else. This may not be a bog deal, but to a newbie, I would rather follow best practice right from the start.
The Good:
I don’t have a lot of good things to say about the app, as you may have gathered if you read
My feelings
“the bad” paragraph. It seemed to listen and respond well to my playing. It felt like a video game, which wasn’t for me, but may be right for you my dear reader. That is about it.
Tune in for next week when I take a YouTuber for a rip!
Hey Cody,
I too get very frustrated when apps are not upfront about the prices, it is very frustrating and really can mess up your plans! Thanks for letting us know about your feelings for this week!
Hopefully, next week will be better with Youtube.
Cody!
I used to use that app when I was starting out on guitar, I totally agree with your pros and cons, it used to drive me crazy. I’m not sure if you are wanting to spend money on this project or if you are trying to keep it free budget friendly, but there is a game called ‘Rocksmith’ that makes learning guitar incredibly fun. It’s like guitar hero but you plug a real guitar into the gaming system instead of a guitar controller. It’s tech, fun, and educational! (plus you get to play video games)!!!
Hey Cody,
I tried out Yousician last week for the ukelele. I also agree that I initially felt confused about the payment part of Yousician, but then I discovered how to skip it. I found that I liked this app for learning ukelele (definitely different from the guitar). I agree with you that it did feel like a video game in a sense, but I liked it like that haha!