Last October, I posted about my experience with SimplyGuitar, an app that is designed to teach you how to play guitar.

I’d started playing a few months earlier and am now closing in on the one-year mark.  According to some research, 90% of guitarists quit the instrument within one year.  This really doesn’t surprise me, for several reasons.

1. It’s not a “school band” instrument the way trumpet or clarinet is.  If a kid signs up for trumpet, he’ll probably be in band for a few years.
2. It’s less of an instant-gratification instrument than some others, such as piano.  In the space of a couple months, you can learn to play some basic songs on piano, but you’d still be struggling to switch chords in time on guitar in all likelihood.
3. There is physical pain involved.  Initially it’s the finger tips, then it’s sore hands from putting them in new positions for extended periods of time.  Sure, it goes away but it’s still a hurdle.
4. And finally, people have unrealistic expectations.  The pick up the instrument because they want to sound like a particular artist.  What they don’t realize is that to play like that person, you can’t shortcut all the beginner and intermediate steps.  There are some areas of guitar that are optional (if you’re not interested in fingerpicking, you can skip it).  But you really do have to learn chords, scales, legato, etc. before you can start jamming.

Make It Into a Video Game

One thing that helps keep players engaged is gamification.  If you’re just sitting in a room with a bunch of YouTube videos and chord printouts, it can be a tough mental slog to really get consistently engaged. On the other hand, if you’re progressing through a series of levels where you’re constantly challenged and get audio/visual feedback as you succeed or fail…now we’re talking.

Gamification can make learning an instrument more engaging and effective by transforming repetitive practice into a rewarding, game-like experience. Apps use points, levels, leaderboards, and achievements to motivate learners, much like video games. This approach taps into the brain’s reward systems, encouraging longer and more frequent practice sessions without them feeling like a chore – and trust me, playing guitar scales can feel like a chore.

Of course, if you can afford a professional teacher, that’s ideal, but they aren’t cheap, which is why instrument apps exist.  They listen as you play, given you feedback, and you “follow the bouncing ball” through a series of exercises and songs to learn the instrument.

Move Over, Simply Guitar

I enjoyed my time with Simply Guitar, but exhausted it not long after that article.  I’d gone through all of the lessons and there wasn’t anything more to do in the app.  Sadly, I learned that the app hasn’t advanced much since it was released and while they occasionally add new songs, the core teaching part of the app hasn’t changed in a long time.

So I moved over to Yousician, and would heartily recommend it over SG for everyone.  I did get a lot out of SG, but Yousician has a lot more:

• Yousician has 10 levels of instruction and 15 levels of songs.  I came over at about level 3.5 from SG, so there’s a lot more headroom.
• Yousician has probably 10x the songs of SG, including tie-ins with many popular bands.  Plus many songs have multiple levels, so you can learn a simplified version at level 2, then a more complex version at level 5, and then the full song as originally written at level 9, etc.
• Yousician has a lot more theory and exercises.  Besides “the next lesson is…” there’s tons of “side quests”.
• Yousician also has challenges, Riff of the Day, workouts, and more.

Overall, it’s a better app and has a lot more to offer than SG.  I mainly picked SG because my daughter (also a beginning guitarist) chose SG and recommended it.  But I’d recommend just starting on Yousician.

raindog308

Raindog308 is a longtime LowEndTalk community administrator, technical writer, and self-described techno polymath. With deep roots in the *nix world, he has a passion for systems both modern and vintage, ranging from Unix, Perl, Python, and Golang to shell scripting and mainframe-era operating systems like MVS. He’s equally comfortable with relational database systems, having spent years working with Oracle, PostgreSQL, and MySQL.

As an avid user of LowEndBox providers, Raindog runs an empire of LEBs, from tiny boxes for VPNs, to mid-sized instances for application hosting, and heavyweight servers for data storage and complex databases. He brings both technical rigor and real-world experience to every piece he writes.

Beyond the command line, Raindog is a lover of German Shepherds, high-quality knives, target shooting, theology, tabletop RPGs, and hiking in deep, quiet forests.

His goal with every article is to help users, from beginners to seasoned sysadmins, get more value, performance, and enjoyment out of their infrastructure.

You can find him daily in the forums at LowEndTalk under the handle @raindog308.