Transcripts
1. About this course: Hey, my name is Jacob. I am a music teacher
and creator, and in this course, we're doing something a
little bit different where typically we look
at an instrument and a skill having
to do with it. Here, we're going to
look at something that typically
distracts musicians, and that's our devices. While devices can be
a huge distraction, they can also be a huge benefit to learning and
mastering the guitar. So today, we're going to look at a few different music
apps that you can use in your practice sessions
or even performing live streaming and just getting better at
your instrument. Now, most of the apps we'll be going through will be free. Some of them might
have a paid version. A couple of them might
be paid as well, but links to all of the apps
are also going to be in this course PDF so that you
can really easily find them, get them on your device,
and start using them. I'm looking forward
to diving in, so grab your phone or your
tablet, and let's get started.
2. How to use these apps: Super quick before we start. I think it's really important to mention that if
you're anything like me, you're going to download
all of these apps. You're going to think
each one is really cool, and then you're going to sit
down with your instrument and never use them. That's at least what I do
with things like this. So a really great way to
start using these to actually get better at what we're doing is to download the ones
you think will be useful. And then every time you
sit down to practice, start thinking through maybe
just one of these apps. You know, try it for a
few practice sessions before you move on to the next
one and do the same thing. Also, don't let them
overtake your practice. If you've already got a routine
going on that you like, we don't want to
interrupt that at all. So dedicate just a
portion of your practice to one of these apps before you move on and try another one. This is meant to be helpful, not another way to distract you.
3. #1. Moises - The song splitter: Now, this app is called Misis. If you haven't heard of Misis, it's probably the
only way that AI actually helps musicians
instead of stealing from them. Moisis is able to take any audio track and split it into the
separate instruments. And then you can listen to
instruments individually, change the speed,
change the key, and export like that. Let's take a look at how
it does that and then how it can help us with
learning and performing. First things first here, we have an empty page. Now, we could record something
or we can add a song. We have a lot of songs on here, so let's go ahead and add one. And once we've
selected our song, we'll do one with a
lot of guitar in it, we can choose how we want
to separate the tracks. Whether we want vocals
to be separate, lead and background or just
vocals as one single track, one guitar track,
even the drums, we can separate into
six separate tracks. So once we submit, it's going to work
and immediately, we have the tempo and
the key that it's in. Now, when I click on it, I can listen to everything
as one unified song still. So let's get a microphone
up there and hit Play. Or we can go back to
that same portion. I'm gonna pull everything down except the electric guitar. And let's see how that sounds. Now, not only that,
but we can also adjust the tempo,
like I mentioned. Let's bring that down
give that a listen. Or finally, we can adjust the key if we want
it higher or lower. Now, here's where this
is really helpful. If we want to separate a guitar track and slow it down so that we can learn
it better, we can do that. But also, if we want to
separate all of the song, except the guitar
and vocals and then change the key so it's where
we're comfortable playing, we can then output that audio
to build something like a set list or go live stream or even
perform on the street, and we have a whole set
list of background music, which is incredibly
useful and powerful. And in fact, they even have
a set list right here, if you'd like to build one with the songs that
you've separated.
4. #2. GuitarPro - Easy TABs: For practicing guitar with tabs, there's really nothing
better than guitar Pro. This is both a
computer software and, of course, for this
course, an app. So we've got Guitar
Pro open up here. Let's see what it
is, what it does, and how well it does it. Guitar Pro has a
massive community of users who've uploaded music, or you can also create
your own music. And then what's really
cool about it is you can open up the tabs, download other people's tabs, and see them right
on your device. And oftentimes they'll also have a backing track with tabs for
things like bass or drums. So right here in Guitar Pro, we've got something
called Acoustic blues and arpeggio Practice and Batrock let's look at the
practice for arpeggios. Now, we've got chords. We've got tabs, sheet music, and even the notes
on the guitar. Now, we can slide around
and explore here, and my favorite thing
about the app version is, whatever note is on this slider, you can see it happening down there as we move to two
on the fifth string, that's going to
happen down there. So this is a phenomenal
way to practice songs. You've even got these
outlines around, and that's just showing
you the other notes that are in that
same exact measure. When we change measures, the notes in the
measure also change. Now, of course, this isn't just looking at it but
listening to it as well. The thing that
makes Qatar Pro so powerful isn't just
the app itself, but the fact that the
community is so large, there's always
something new to learn. Now, this is a really
straightforward app. The actual computer PC version, there's so many ins and outs, and it's just this massive
way to create tabs. I use it for a lot
of these courses. But the app is so
straightforward, you can dive in and start
learning right away. Now, like we mentioned,
you can also create your own music in here. There are ways on
the computer version to actually plug in a MIi instrument and just play what you
want to write out, which is just so
helpful for speed. But on here, when
you're on a tablet, it's as easy as picking a
string and picking the note. I'm not really writing
anything specific. If I was, I don't think
it would sound very good. But really quick way
to make tabs as well, and you can change the tempo
of the note really quickly. This is probably the
best and easiest way to do it on a device where other ones
have you kind of more nuanced making
these small changes. This is really quick
back and forth. Next note number,
next note number.
5. #3. JamZone - Backing tracks to famous songs: Jam zone is an enormous
musical catalog of tabs and sheet music and even practice tracks for not just annual backing
track but real known songs. Check this out.
From the homepage, we have playlists like hot
hits with songs that just about everybody would
recognize. Die with a smile. You look like you love
me. I'm not okay. I don't know when you're
watching this course, but at the moment, those
are the top songs. The other thing
that we can do is make our own library of
songs that we have saved. You can see that
I've saved so many. Let's take a look at
what the actual song looks like once you open it up. We have House of the Rising Sun as one of the free tracks. There is a huge library of free tracks that you
can play as well. And so let's just see what
happens when we hit Play. There is a house in New. These s. Now, just like Moises, we can also add and remove
individual tracks here. So maybe I want these
vocals out of there. The organ, the bass,
maybe even the drum. There's just guitar, drums. And nothing. There's also a click that you can add in
there to be really helpful, but this is a great way to
kind of tear known songs apart if you don't have a way
to import them into Moises. This is awesome since
there's that top 50 list, and they're all right there with the tracks perfectly separated. Now there are so many settings about audio quality settings, how the player works,
how the mixer works, and even for building
your own set list. So this is really cool. If you want to
jump onto Tik Tok, you want to play some of
the most popular songs, and you've got your guitar
and you want to sing, well, you can build a set list of the most popular songs all
just as drum and bass tracks. And then you can
bring that audio into TikTok and have a whole
set list ready to go, especially here, you can hit
in the set list settings. Auto next or auto play. That's going to jump from one
song right into the next, so you don't even
need to hit anything, just focus on performing.
6. #4. GuitarTuna - Tune and learn!: When we're talking about apps
that are useful for guitar, it's kind of hard to
get around a tuner. Everybody needs a good tuner. Some of them are paid, some of them are free. This one is a
phenomenal one that uses your device's microphone
to tune your guitar. And I find from
years of using it, it does a perfect job.
Genuinely impressive. So right now we've got a
picture of an acoustic guitar, and we can change that six string guitar into
anything that we need bass, ukulele, you name it. For now, we'll stick with
the guitar six string. Let me grab my acoustic and
we'll see how it works. Okay, one string at a time at Autosenses which string
you're trying to play. So my lowest E string, I know is detuned right now, and if I hit it, you're going to see it all the way down there with the words tune up. The goal is to get that
needle right in the middle, whether it's flat to the
left or sharp to the right. So watch that needle as
I tune my guitar up. Same thing on the next string. Notice it automatically
changes strings, and now I've got two
green out of six of them. Okay, I claims that all of
my strings are now in tune. Let's play a chord and
see if that's true. This is 100% faith
in guitar tuna. Talk about Impressive.
Now, of course, it's not just a tuner. Otherwise, that wouldn't
make for a very good video. But you'll notice down
here on the sides, there's a lot of other options like songs that we can
learn how to play, a learn tab where we could
get down some guitar basics, and a tools tab where we've
got not just a tuner, but metronomes, chord libraries, ear trainers, even a chord game. So once your guitar is in
tune, you don't need to leave. The app, you can stay
here and actually learn your instrument
within this app.
7. #5. SmartChord - A whole toolkit: You're kind of sick of what
you know on the guitar and you want to learn some
new weird chord voicings. Or you just played this really interesting chord that you've never heard before, but you have no clue
what to call it. Well, in comes Smart Cord. Now, smart Cord is an app that
has a ton of tools in it, some of which we've already
covered like a metronome. But what we can do here is we can look at all these
different tools, and Cord name is one
of my favorites. So once upon a time, I played a chord I had
never heard before, and I open something just
like this and you can start tapping out the different
notes that you hit. Let's see. This
was my cord here. And when you tap it in, it gives you the name of the
chord right there. You could even save the chords. So you've got a songbook of really beautiful
chord voicings that you've found, and we
can even hear it. But of course, it
doesn't stop there. As we just saw,
there is a lot here. We can look at the
circle of fifths. We can look at a
drum kit and kind of build out a drum pad for us. We can learn some new chords that we can try to
add into our song. We can even look at a chord pad, and maybe start making a song. Let's see here. Let's
add that chord in there. Then we want to add
something like this. So we're talking about
a whole library, not just of a single
tool, but multiple tools. And this is a really
powerful free app. There is a paid
version where you get even more tools that do
equally as cool things. But of all of these, this is the one
that's probably the most versatile and useful.
8. #6. Ultimate Guitar - Chords for days: Maybe you're not
looking for tabs. Maybe you're not looking to
perform live on social media. Maybe you're not
looking to learn all the craziest chords. You just want to play the chords you know on
the songs you love. There really isn't
a larger library of chord charts for songs
than ultimate guitar, and, of course,
they've got an app. Now, Ultimate guitar has got the same exact
navigation features like new songs, top songs. You can build out
your own library. They've even got easy songs focused on the chords
that you likely know. When you click on a song, it's going to take you
right to the chord sheet. At the top, it tells you what chords you need
to play the song. And moving down, you have chords placed above the word that
that chord is played with. So I know on the word before, I'm going to hit a G.
I know on the word Is, I'm going to hit a chord B. An angel, I'm going
to hit C. Now, you'll notice you
can also zoom in and out just like it's an image. You could also pin the chords
at the top if you want to be able to see
them as you scroll, which is a very cool feature. Now, this isn't just for guitar. If you happen to be learning
another instrument, you can hit adjust and you
could also open the chords for the ukulele or even
the piano right there. A lot of these chords, too, as you scroll, you can
click on and hear it, which is just the best way to be able to use
the chords that you know in a really simple song format
for completely free.
9. #7. Songsterr - Best Tab site: Songster is like the
ultimate guitar of tabs. There's this really
huge library, probably the second largest
online library of songs. But instead of a
chord chart like ultimate guitar,
you've got tabs. Now, we're getting the format down that there are popular
songs and new songs, and you can build out playlists. You have favorites
in history, right? That's all kind of the same. But here's the really cool
thing that Songster does. Over here, you can adjust what instrument
you're looking for. You can select the tuning
of your instrument, which is really important. If you're playing in drop
D and you want songs specifically for that tuning,
you can find them here. And there's a whole bunch
of settings to kind of work out how the app's
going to best help you. But the actual songs here
when you click on one, you're taken to this master tab. Now, I really like
the dark view. It's easy on the eyes, and you can scroll
through the song. They have parts charted
out like main Riff so you never have to wonder
where in the song you are. You can also change what
instrument you're listening to. This is distortion guitar
played by Kirk in Metallica, but maybe I want to play
what Hetfields playing. I can switch that tab up, although it doesn't
look like Hetfields playing much until
later in the song. So not only is this a song, but this is tabs for
different parts of the song, and they're really
clearly marked. Now, not only can
we see the tab, but we could also
play through and hear the tab along with
the YouTube video. So we're actually playing
the tab with the song audio. There's also a non
YouTube version playing along with this
kind of synth audio, and that's a completely
free feature. So all of this, not a cent, which is kind of crazy when
you think about how far music technology has
come to help us learn.
10. Recap and congratulations!: There are a bunch of apps
for different use cases. And just to recap,
we've got Moises, which can separate any
of your audio files, slow them down, change the key, and build a set list of lead
lines or backing tracks. We've got guitar Pro, which helps you read
other tabs or even make your own Jam zone, which helps you get
backing tracks to really famous songs and
isolate tracks as well. Guitar Tuna, which is
a great way to learn, take some courses, although
I recommend these courses. Take some courses, tune your guitar up and
have a metronome. You've also got Smart Cord, which is just 1 billion
different tools to help you get better at your
instrument all the way into some advanced chords. Ultimate guitar is
going to get you those chord charts for songs, and song stir is going to get
you not the chord charts, but the tabs for songs for all the
different guitar parts. And honestly, that's
a crazy amount of free tools that you already have if you have a
phone or a tablet. Now, I should mention
most of these apps also have a computer version that does something
totally different. Like ultimate guitar has got extra features on the computer, especially Guitar Pro is this massive whole world of software when it's
on the computer. But that doesn't mean that
the app versions aren't equally as cool for
their own reasons. I would love to hear as a project, if you
could call it that, which apps you ended
up trying out, why they worked for
you, why they didn't, how they changed your practice. And I'm really looking forward to seeing you
in the next course. Well done, finishing this one.
Jacob Lamb, Musician, photographer and videographer
