Yousician — Learn to Play Music Like Playing Video Games| Music Tech Alliance
It takes a lot of time practicing when you learn to play instruments. Most players feel tired or frustrated when you practice and give up. In 2014, I noticed a great service called Guitarbot which helps me learn guitar like playing video games. In 2015 Aug, Yousician replaces Guitarbot and now Yousician provides not only guitar lessons but also bass, piano, singing and ukulele lessons.
Prerequisites and Audio Setup
After you install Yousician app, the first thing is setting up your input device. Yousician will analyze the note you play right or not by algorithms with input device, helping you improve your playing skill.
The basic input device for smartphone and laptop is build-in microphone, but sometimes microphones doesn’t receive the audio signal well. Maybe the volume is too low or I’m too far away microphone.
If you have an audio interface, I suggest you connecting your interface into your computer as the input device and the output of your instruments plug into the input of audio interface. It’s the best result without latency in my experience.
The Features of Yousician
Gamification and Realtime Feedback
I think gamification is Yousician’s important character. In the beginning, you are level 0 being a newbie, you will upgrade your level by learning and playing Yousician’s missions. You will get the stars and points when you complete the missions.
The other one important character is the realtime feedback, you play on correct note and time, you will get instant feedback like perfect or a bit late. It helps me know my problem instantly and more interactive like playing a game.
Explore Thousands of Songs, Exercises and Lessons
Yousician is not a complicated application. For new players, getting started with the level zero mission. A mission includes videos and exercises. Learn the skill from videos and practice in the exercises.
As a new guitar player, you will learn how to tune and hold guitar, don’t worry the lessons are too hard for you. If you’re advanced players, searching for the songs you like in the searching bar or play the songs in the home page, there are many popular genres and recommended content you may like.
Taking the Pixar’s movie Soul for example, I am excited I can play “Born To Play” and “Bigger Than Us” in Yousician. Here are the songs in Yousician, you can find the songs you recently like.
Learn Efficiently with Practice Mode
In my learning experience, I spend a lot of time playing melody from slow to fast. It takes patience and a lot of time. Yousician’s practice mode helps me practice more efficiently by repeating small sections and adjust the speed of music.
No matter what kind of notations you’re familiar with, Yousician provides tablature, guitar frets and standard sheet music for users. It’s helpful.
Ear Training Puzzle
“Listen” and realize the chord progress, melody and key is very important for musicians. In the option of workouts, you can develop the sense of pitch by playing ear trainers.
In ear trainer, there are plus, minus and equal icons which indicate the change of notes’ pitch. I should listen the notes and put them in right positions to pass the workout. It’s very great and funny way to train your ear.
Your Activity Report
Every time you finish your practice, you can watch your achievement in your profile page. Here are your total and daily practice time. Practicing makes perfect, the playtime makes you more confident.
If you login to Yousician with Facebook account. You can watch your friend’s level and what’s songs have played. It’s funny.
Pricing of Yousician
If you’re interested in Yousician, you can try premium free for 7 days on all instruments (guitar, piano, bass, ukulele, and singing), but you have to fill in your credit card information. Learning only single instrument, the price is $9.99 for a monthly subscription or $119.99 for an annual plan. If you’d like learn all instruments, the price is $179.99. In comparison with private guitar lessons, it is a good choice to try.
Yousician charges renewing subscription fees automatically until you cancel the renewal of your subscription. Remember to cancel if you don’t want to subscribe.
