Guitar Pro is world-known software of editing sheet music. Someone may misunderstand Guitar Pro only for guitar players, but actually which is for bass players, drummers, many kinds of musicians. It’s convenient when youpractice and communicate with your band members.

Guitar Pro is developed by Arobas Music company in Frances. They’re founded in 1997, now they have almost 10 people in the team. The latest version is Guitar Pro 8.

When you learn more songs, it’s hard to remember every detail of each song. Sheet music can help you review the melodies and riffs you love quickly.

With today’s advanced software engineering, your sheet music is easily portable on your phone and tablet. You don’t need to carry many heavy paper. This post will introduce the advantages of Guitar Pro which you can improve your techniques efficiently.

Setting up the Speed, Practicing from Low Tempo to High Tempo

When you practice a new song, it’s common that you can’t play the original tempo in the beginning. In this situation, you can utilize the function of “SPEED SETTINGS” like below. There is a “Relative Speed” function helping you gradually reach the original tempo step by step. For example, you can set up the 60% speed at first, after you familiar with it, adding 10% to 70%.

The other way is “Fixed BPM”, which you can directly set up 100 BPM or any BPM you want. When you familiar with the speed, increasing 5 BPM. It’s really helpful.

The other relative functions are like “metronome” and “count-in”, you can use together. The stability of tempo is always important for music players.

mySongBook: Guitar Pro Scores Library

mySongBook is the official tablatures of Guitar Pro, there are different kinds of music genre like Rock, Blues, Jazz and Bossa Nova. The majority of mySongBook are Western songs.

You can search ths songs you want to learn on Guitar Pro’s website and open it with Guitar Pro software.

Except for the official website, you also can search on the homepage of Guitar Pro software, there is an option called “MYSONGBOOK”:

There are some options you can filter when you search for songs, like the genres, instruments and types. Genres and instruments are easy to understand, the types include “Full Score” for a band or “Guitar & Vocals” for a duo performance. Those filters are convenient to find the tab you want.

Guitar Pro Free Tab & My Favorites ⭐️

One of the benefit of mySongBook is one free tab provided by Guitar Pro everyday. Although you can’t edit the free tab, you can export as PDF or mp3 files. Based on my obeservation, most of free tabs are western or instrumental songs, sincerely recommending to music players who love to collect sheet music.

Those free tabs you find from mySongBook can be add into “My favorites” with ⭐️ mark. Filtering those “My favorites” tabs in the home page, establishing your own score library is really easy.

Editing Your Sheet Music on Mobile and Tablet, Cross-Platform Experience

Except for the desktop version of Guitar Pro, it is also available on iOS and Android platfrom.

The pricing of iOS App is 220 NT dollars, the pricing of Android is 180 NT dollars. It is a one-time purchase, not a subscription. You can install on iPhone and iPad at the same time with one Apple Store account.

After you install Guitar Pro App, logging in to your mySongBook premium account and start to search the lovely songs and artists like below buttom left corner picture.

Guitar Pro App supports background play on mobile, you can treat it as a music streaming App. When you close the screen or switch to other apps, it continues playing the tab.

If you want to edit sheet music during the commuting time. There is a NotePad function which is great to getting started like below buttom right corner picture. Although some of advanced techniques can’t be editted on mobile app like slap, left hand tapping, and harmonic note, you can export the file as a GP or GPX file and adding the techniques on your computer.

When you want to transfer the Guitar Pro file from desktop to iPad or mobile, please connect the same Wi-Fi network and clicking “+” icon on your iPad or mobile App and selecting the option of “From a computer”.

It will show up the http link , please enter it into your web browser on desktop computer.

On the top of webpage browser, you can upload the Guitar Pro files you edit on computer. On the other hand, you can click the name of the scores in the left side and download them to your computer.

After uploading the file to your iPad or mobile, you can listen and practice during the commuting time.

mySongBook Pricing & Discount

The original 2 year pricing of mySongBook is 60 US dollar. I have received the sales like 25% off Guitar Pro and 50% off mySongBook on festivals like Christmas or Black Friday. The lowest sale I have met is 50% discount.

In my past experience, I bought a full band scores on Japanese website almost 4 US dollar each song. I think the pricing of mySongBook is reasonable.

I bought my Guitar Pro on Guitar Pro official website, even your Guitar Pro purchase account is different from your mySongbook subscription account, feel free to ask for the custom support, they will support you tansfer the license.

My MusicTech stuido not only provides the hardware guitar and bass devices, but also provides you iPad including Guitar Pro and mySongbook, assisting you practice and edit your own scores, welcome to book the time!

Guitar Pro Software and mySongBook Score Library— Improving the Efficiency of Practicing Guitar was originally published in Music Tech Alliance on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The guitar tone is amazing in this song, how to tune the guitar tone? As long as using the Tonebridge Guitar Effects App, you can use the tone of the song you like.

Tonebridge Guitar Effects is developed by Muse Group, the first version was released in July, 2017. Most of people may not know this company, but you may use their products before. For example, the Ultimate Guitar is a famous guitar tablature platform. Audacity is a free and popular digital audio workstation for audio recording and editing. MuseScore is an online sheet music service available on website, mobile and tablet app. All of them are Muse Group’s products.

The Installation Steps of Tonebridge Guitar Effects

Before you download Tonebridge Guitar Effects App, please make sure whether you have the devices sending guitar signals to mobile devices or your computer. I bought the iRig HD2 myself at Taiwan Apple Store as the input device. Here are the compatible devices recommended by Tonebridge Guitar Effects:

• iRig, iRig 2, iRig HD, iRig HD 2, iRig Pro
• Ampkit Link
• Apogee JAM, Line 6 Mobile In, Line 6 SonicPort, iRiffPort, Alesis IO Dock
• Rocksmith cable (with Apple camera adapter only)

Connecting the Tonebridge Guitar Effects with iRig HD2

When you already have the input device, you want to use on the mobile, please download the iOS or Android version of Tonebridge Guitar Effects App. There is a Mac version for desktop users, but there is no Windows version.

After you download and open the Tonebridge Guitar Effects App at first time, please check the voice input settings in the bottom left. Input device is like iRig HD2 and output device can be the speaker or audio interface.

Below is a real photo after I connect to iRig HD2. In addition to headphones, the sound output can also be connect to a multi-effect pedals , amps or speakers.

If you want to play guitar at night when you are on a business trip, you only need to bring headphones, guitar cables, iRig HD2 and cell phone cables. It is very suitable for business trips and outings.

Searching for Your Favorite Artist or Song from Tonebridge Guitar Effects

After you installing Tonebridge App and connecting to your guitar, just search for your favorite artists or songs in search bar like below video. You will get the presents you are interested in and just take out your guitar, enjoy the sound.

If you still don’t know what kind of music you can play, there is a “Preview Sound” function on the right side of the screen, you can listen to the guitar clips of the original song and examples of different genres as reference.

If you are a fan of an artist or a band, clicking the artist name in the bottom of the screen, it will show all of guitar presents related to this artist. For example, if you are a fan of AC/DC, you can find all of their guitar presents at once.

When you play guitar, please watch out which pickup you use. Conventional wisdom says to use the neck pickup for rhythm guitar and bridge pickup for lead guitar, but that’s highly variable depending on the music and guitar you play.

Tonebridge Guitar Effects is really sweet and provides suggested pickup for guitarists. Just click the information icon in the upper right, you will see the suggestion. It’s very convenient.

Due to Tonebridge Guitar Effects and Ultimate Guitar are developed by Muse Group. You can click “Open Tab” button in the right bottom of screen and open the guitar tablature on Ultimate Guitar. If you are the subscriber of Ultimate Guitar, you can use this function well.

Integrating Apple Music into Tonebridge Guitar Effects

If you are a subscriber of Apple Music, you can use iOS version of Tonebridge Guitar Effects and play the song at the same time. Like below video, you can practice this song with Tonebridge Guitar Effects.

If there are many different versions of this song, you can switch to the version you like on Apple Music Library. It’s really great.

Learn How to Adjust Amplifier Settings and Effects Parameters by Tonebridge Guitar Effects

Every present in Tonebridge Guitar Effects includes many gears like amplifier, noise gate and EQ etc.

I think the value of Tonebridge Guitar Effects not only model the guitar tone of a song, but also feel the influence of the parameters on guitar effects. You can gain experience by tuning the guitar presents, it’s a great value of this product.

Taking the above GIF for example, I choose the guitar present of “Smoke on the water” song. I want to know how to adjust the low, middle and treble settings of “Smoke the Water”. I can take the level of parameters for reference. But every amplifier is different, you can’t apply the same level to every amplifier. You should try and listen on your own, you will have a lot of fun. Don’t worry about messing up the original setting, there is a “Reset” button in the top right. Be bold and enjoy it.

There are 23 types of guitar amp provided by Tonebridge Guitar Effects. Each type of amp shows up which amplifier they modeled by. For example, the Colonel 900 is modeled by the famous amp Marshall JCM900.

In my past experience, I have used different amps and guitar pedals on PositiveGrid software. But if you want to know which amp they are modeled by, you should look it up on the official website. Maybe there is a copyright issue for PositiveGrid, but comparing to Tonebridge Guitar Effects. Tonebridge Guitar Effects is sweet and introduces the details of amps.

I have used iOS, Android and Mac version of Tonebridge Guitar Effects. For this kind of Guitar Tone App, I’m afraid of the latency issue. But there is no latency on iPhone and Mac, but it happens obviously on Android. The Mac version sometimes crashes. I recommend the iOS version personally.

Thanks for reading~🙏

Unlocking the Guitar Tone of Songs by Tonebridge Guitar Effects — Guitar Effects was originally published in Music Tech Alliance on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

As long as searching for the song on Youtube, there are many free guitar lessons online. CoachGuitar is a software I recently download, it’s eligible for who loves western pop music for beginners.

For example, you can find 2022’s Best R&B Song of Grammy Awards “Leave The Door Open” or the hot song 2002 created by Anne Marie and Ed Sheeran.

CoachGuitar is found by Boris Douarre in Paris since 2012. According to Linkedin’s profile, CoachGuitar is not a big company, not more than 8 employees. CoachGuitar is available on website, Apple Store and Google Play and Microsoft Store. I want to share my user experience with you as below.

Free Version of CoachGuitar: learn to play a song gradually without music theory

If you don’t want to understand chord progression and music theory in a song, just want to play music on your guitar. CoachGuitar is a good fit for you.

Taking the 2002 made by Anne Marie and Ed Sheeran for example, when you open the lesson, the upper video shows how to play the full song. CoachGuitar separates a song into many parts like verse, pre-chorus, chorus and bridge parts.

At first, I press the “Verse-Complete” text and listen the music, understand what I will play. And then I press the part 1 text, which shows me the slow version with animated fretboard and song tempo. Every video can be auto replayed or slow down to 0.5 speed. It’s helpful to learn efficiently.

Premium Version of CoachGuitar: Practice with backing or tablature

The above way to learn guitar on CoachGuitar is free, but you will see the advertises when you watch different videos.

If you pay US$19.99 monthly or US$119.99 yearly, CoachGuitar provides you 4 key features:

1. Mute the guitar track of the video, playing along with the backing track. It makes you know what problem you need to revise. You have to play guitar confidently, CoachGuitar provides a good method to practice.
2. Own each song’s guitar tabs. For advanced guitar player, you can quickly know the chord progression and fret placement by tabs.

3. Unlock he “My Coach” feature. It provides you basic to advanced lessons like playing with a pick or finger style techniques.

4. Download the lessons and learn anywhere.

In my past experience, the CoachGuitar website sometimes crashed 😆 I suggest you download CoachGuitar App to start your guitar journey. In comparison with Yousician I introduced before, CoachGuitar is more suitable for commute time. Playing on acoustic guitar or electric guitar are both great.

Learn to Play Western Popular Songs on Guitar by CoachGuitar was originally published in Music Tech Alliance on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

In the past years, I have learned to play instruments many years. I think recording is a great way to improve yourself because you can realize your problems by listening your record. It’s also joyful to record a song you love with your friends. I am not a professional recording engineer and I don’t know much about recording devices. I just want to share a convenient way to record music with good quality.

Recording Electric Guitar with Your iPhone

The most common music cover is playing guitar and singing at the same time. Sometimes I record guitar solo with audio software on my computer, but the problem is there is no video in our recording. Recently I recorded the cover with iPhone and GO:MIXER, this solution let me record a video with great audio quality. I also can save the file on my iPhone. It’s convenient to publish the Instagram post and story on social media platform. Now I want to share my experience with you.

Recording cover with iPhone and GO:MIXER

After you buy a GO:MIXER, you can connect your GO:MIXER to your iPhone through the lightning to micro-USB cable like below photo. You’ll see the green light flashing after the connection. You don’t need to buy any batteries.

After connecting the iPhone, please connect the instrument you want to record. GO:MIXER support instruments like guitar, bass, vocal and keyboard.

For example, I record electric guitar so the cable from output of guitar amp should connect to the hole of guitar or microphone on GO:MIXER.

After you connect your instrument, please connect your headphone to GO:MIXER and turn up or turn down the volume. If you see the red light, it means your volume is too loud.

I take the GO:MIXER as an audio interface, but it is lighter than normal audio interface and you can connect to iPhone. GO:MIXER is like a receiver collecting the sound from many places and send to your iPhone.

The way to record music cover with GO:MIXER is like you record a video on your iPhone. Set up the height of your iPhone with great angle and pressing the red recording button on iPhone. You can play music or metronome on your computer, iPhone won’t receive the voice of music and metronome. It’s so wonderful. After you record a video you’re satisfied with, please open your photo app on iPhone and check the result by listening with your headphone which connects to GO:MIXER.

Recording Acoustic Guitar with Your iPhone

If your acoustic guitar has a pickup, the recording setup is similar to electric guitar like last paragraph, your output of acoustic guitar connects to the guitar input of GO:MIXER.

If you want to record your acoustic guitar with microphone, please make connection between microphone and GO:MIXER. Oftentimes, microphone cables are referred to as XLR on both side. This kind of cable can’t connect to GO:MIXER directly. You need a cable with XLR connector and 6.3MM connector. It’s not too expensive, almost 10 dollar. Or you can connect your microphone to an audio mixer, let the sound rally in the mixer and output to GO:MIXER. It’s another solution you can consider.

Recording Electric Drum with Your iPhone

It’s also similar setup for drummers recording on electric drum. There are left output and right output on the sound module of electric drum. Please connect them to GO:MIXER with cables.

Electric drum usually is stereophonic sound with two channels. You can imagine there are two music tracks connect to GO:MIXER. I think the best cable for electric drum I think is two 6.3MM connectors to 3.5MM stereo connector. If you have two cables, it’s ok.

Cost Analysis

Last but not least, let’s talk about the pricing of GO:MIXER. In 2019, the GO:MIXER is about 100 US dollars, now the price is almost 200 US dollars out of stock. The advanced one is GO:MIXER PRO, the price is almost about 200 US dollars. Maybe it’s more cost-effective.

The other expense are cables. One cable is approximately 10 US dollars, you may need two cables. If you have more budget, maybe the handy video recorder like ZOOM Q4 is a better option for you. For Android users, GO:MIXER supports Android system and launched an Camcorder app for Android users. But the rating of this app only 3.5 point. I am not sure whether this is a good solution for Android users.

Wish you guys record the music well! Welcome to leave your comments and feel free to ask questions.

Recording Music Cover with Your iPhone — Guitar Cover, Drum Cover, GO:MIXER was originally published in Music Tech Alliance on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Due to the rise of internet and social medium, the interaction between artists and fans is totally different before. 15 years ago, audience watched singers singing on the TV shows and went to buy albums at record stores. The sales of CD is the key metric for singer. At the present time, we listen music on streaming service like Spotify and Apple Music. For artists, the click number becomes the key metric now. It’s a matter of how to realize your fans and plan the marketing strategy. Linkfire is a great solution tracking the source, traffic and behavior of your fans.

Linkfire is found in 2014, which is a 80 people internet company They are headquartered in Copenhagen, with offices in NYC, LA, and Lisbon.

Linkfire is not only designed for musicians, but also a good marketing tool for blogger and individuals. It assists us make improvement of user engagement. This post prior to introduce Linkfire features for musicians, let’s get starting

Release Link — Promote New Songs and Albums

When a musician wants to promote a new song and album, you can generate a “release link” on Linkfire platform promoting your music. Adding a release link to your social medium like IG stories, IG profile page, Facebook group and Youtube description. Fans can play songs with the music streaming service they prefer. Here are the steps creating a release link:

Step 1: Copy Song Link of Songs and Albums

Searching for the streaming service like Spotify or Apple Music and copy the song or album link you want to promote. Taking the below screenshot for example, when I want to promote Jazz singer, Theo Lee’s song “Butterfly”, I open my Spotify and copied the song link.

Step 2: Login to Linkfire Platform and Choose Link Type

Linkfire offers a 7-day free trial. I select the starter plan with $10 monthly fee. There are many plans for creators and teams in pricing page, select the one suited for you. After you sign up and login to the Linkfire management system, you’ll see the interface as below. Click the “Create link” in the upper-right button, create the release link you want to promote.

Linkfire is a marketing tool for music industry, they design different links and interfaces for different scenarios. After you click the “Create link” button in the upper-right, there are many different link types you choose. The “Release” link is for new songs and albums. The “Playlist” is for music playlist. The “Tickets” is for live event. The “Content” is for medium or blogs. The “Bio” is for an individual. Choose the left one of “Release” and click the “Continue” button.

Step 3: Generating Your Release Link

Paste the song link you copied in the step one and click the green button generating your release link. There are some information like the title, artists, tags and link address you can set up. Don’t worry, those items can be modified after you generate your release link. Feel free to click “Create link” immediately.

Step 4: Confirm the Layout of Release link

After clicking the “Create link” button, you will get the release link (https://lnk.to/vn0pWtBK). Please confirm the layout and functionalities of release link on the web browser. The strength of Linkfire is automatically imports all of streaming service enable users play the song conveniently. The largest number of streaming service in the interface is six.

If you want to edit the wording, images and streaming service of release link, Linkfire enables users customize the interface in the Linkfire management system.

If you don’t see your top priority streaming services you want to promote, please click the “Service destinations” option to add the streaming service as below. This is the process of how to increase a new KKBOX streaming service and delete the Deezer service.

Every song doesn’t publish in every country, you can check Linkfire which lists all of available countries for each streaming service. If you see the reminder of “1 needs destination”, it means that Linkfire is not sure the song link in this streaming service, please manually enter the song link.

Besides setting up the streaming service, the wording, images and order of streaming service can be modified by the option of “Landing Pages” in the left bar. The editing process is like the animation below.

There is no limit to the number of links a user can create, create different release links based on your requirements and goals.

Linkfire Dashbaord with Great Metrics

After modifying your release link, you can start to promote your events with release links. The performances of release links can be tracked and analyzed on the Linkfire dashboard. Linkfire provides the numbers with 4 time slots including 24 hours, 7 days and 28 days and all time. Understand your fans by the data. I divide the data into three perspectives:

Active Metrics

• Visits, the number of times the link has been visited by actual people.
• Click-through, the number of times a visitor has clicked through to a music streaming service on your link.
• CTR (Click-through rate), the percentage of click-throughs against the number of visits.
• Bounce rate, the percentage of visits to your landing page where the visit closed the page without doing anything.
• Sources. For example, users click the release link on instagram, Medium or other sources.

Music Streaming Services Metrics

• Streams, the number of tracked streams contributed by Linkfire links.
• Streams per click-through, the ratio of streams on supported services against the number of click-throughs.
• Music streaming services, like Spotify and Apple Music.
• Devices, like mobile and desktop

Sales Metrics

There are some metrics related to sales.

• Items sold per click-through, the ratio of items on supported platforms against the number of click-throughs.
• Items Sold, the number of items the link has been sold.

I think Linkfire is helpful for artists and creators understanding your fans and refine your marketing strategy for your music business.

Linkfire — Understand Your Fans by Music Marketing Tool was originally published in Music Tech Alliance on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Following up my last post about Epidemic Sound, Epidemic Sound not only run the soundtrack business, the Epidemic Spaces is background music service for business in the global.

Curated Playlists for Stores

Epidemic Spaces provides different playlists for stores like bars, restaurants, and gyms. After you sign up for an Epidemic Spaces account and login to website, you will see the “Find your sound” section. There are many stores you can select, Epidemic Spaces will generate different music according to the store you select.

The difference between Epidemic Spaces and general music streaming app,Spotify are there is no previous button to play last song and there is no function of editing playlist. I think it is reasonable. If you are an employee in a coffee shop, you just want to play great music easily and quickly. You don’t have enough time to edit a music playlist.

I really like the design of energy bar on Epidemic Spaces website. You can pick up the high energy playlist in the gyms and low energy playlist in the coffee shop to get a good vibe. How a smart and understandable design.

Platforms of Epidemic Spaces and Music Certificate

Epidemic Spaces is available on web and iOS app. There is no Android app. So Android user has to open the Chrome browser to play music. For smart speaker owners, it is available on Sonos speakers, but not ready for Google Nest and Apple HomePod. When you play music on Epidemic Spaces app, at same time, you also can play on web.

Epidemic Spaces provides music certificate with your organization name and copyright term. Business can print out the pdf file of certificate and pasted up it on shop’s wall. The download link of “Music Certificate” is in the right-upper Epidemic Spaces website.

Pricing of Epidemic Spaces

I think Epidemic Spaces’ playlists are great. If you’re interested in it, there is a 14 days free trial. After 14 days, you will be charged €16.99 monthly. If you don’t like it after you try it, you can cancel at any time. And you won’t be charged after your trial has ended.

If you want to make your home like a coffee shop, Epidemic Spaces can be your best DJ.

Epidemic Spaces — Licensed Background Music for Business was originally published in Music Tech Alliance on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

In recent years, the grow-up of podcast and Youtube channels increase the demand of soundtracks, good soundtracks make videos and podcast more vivid and interesting. Epidemic Sound provides music licensing for video, film and YouTube saving the time of searching for royalty-free music.

Epidemic Sound Features— Amazing Sound Effects Library

Epidemic Sound is a Swedish music production company with headquarters in Stockholm. In compare with music streaming app like Spotify, the music and sound effects on Epidemic Sound website can be downloaded legally after paying money to get digital rights.

There are 35 thousand songs and 90 thousand sound effects at Epidemic Sound. I think the key feature of Epidemic Sound is many kinds of sound effects. They are animals, voices, ambience and more. All of them are available to listen and purchase. Epidemic Sound provides most common audio format of wav and mp3.

A tip of searching for the sound effect and music you want is using the function of “Find Similar” as below screenshot. It’s is convenient and you can add the sounds you like into your own playlist on Epidemic Sound website.

Epidemic Sound Features— Music with Instrumental Tracks

There are many well-organized genres and moods help users search for music according to users’ preference on website. And each song has instrumental tracks, you can listen the vocal, bass and drum part of a song individually.

Epidemic Sound Features — Filter the Soundtracks Quickly

Saving the time of searching for right music is important for video editors. Epidemic Sound provides the way of filtering the BPM and length of music as below demo.

Pricing and Copyright

There are two ways of getting the music license at Epidemic Sound. One is buying a single track or a sound effect at one time, the other one is joining the monthly subscription.

Buy a Single Track or a Sound Effect Once

Please take this pricing list as reference, this is for single track license. Please make sure your videos whether publish on social media and where to publish. Those factors have an impact on the pricing you have to pay.

Monthly Subscription

If you’re not sure how many songs and sound effects you need, I suggest you try 30-day free trial. There are personal and commercial subscriptions, the difference between them is the copyright scope and licensing platforms. Business subscription is not only licensed to a company but also company’s clients and business.

Furthermore, you are allowed to soundtrack the websites and digital ads in commercial subscription, but you’re not allowed to soundtrack TV shows and TV ads. Here is the detail information of subscriptions, please confirm your requirement before you subscribe.

Epidemic Sound makes musician’s benefit and values broaden into commercial level, musician’s income not only from music streaming service but come from commercial licensing. They deserved a better reward. Let’s appreciate their music now!

Epidemic Sound — Perfect Sound Effects and Tracks for Your Videos was originally published in Music Tech Alliance on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

If we can learn new skills form the master in a field, it’s so attractive. If your teacher is Christina Aguilera, you definitely treasure the chance.

In the past, there is no chance to learn from the best. But now, it’s available to learn how to play basketball with Stephen Curry, how to play guitar with Carols Santana, how to play Jazz with Herbie Hancock. The classes are available on MasterClass online classes.

The Features of MasterClass Online Classes

MasterClass online classes has a wide range of subjects including Arts & Entertainment, Business, Design & Style, Sports & Gaming, Writing and more.There are many music masters like Jazz pianist Herbie Hancock, German film score composer Hans Zimmer, American singer Christina Aguilera and guitarist Carlos Santana.

In my thought, I don’t think MasterClass totally adaptive to beginners, it doesn’t teach you how to play music scales and chord from foundations. Taking Carol Santana class for example, it has 16 video classes, at an average of 10 minutes per lesson. Carols Santana shares his music concept and treasurable experience about music, they are more advanced classes.

Classes with Workbook and Sheet Music

There is a downloadable workbook in every class help reinforce your learning. Workbook is exquisite as a magazine. You can use this workbook to follow along with the video classes and complete the assignments to put master’s advice and experience into practice.

Audio Mode — Learning by Listening

At MasterClass, it’s available to stream thousands of lessons anywhere, anytime, on mobile, desktop and TV.

On MasterClass mobile apps, you can switch video lessons into audio mode. In audio mode, you don’t have to stare at the mobile screen, even closing the mobile screen and learn the classes by listening. It’s very convenient like you listen to podcast.

Most of our classes are only offer with English closed captioning/subtitles. However a few classes just with Spanish and German subtitles. You can adjust the video quality by clicking on the gear icon at the bottom right of the video player, selecting from the quality options of 360p, 540p,720p and 1080p that pop up. Selecting “Auto” to let the site manage the quality based on your internet speed.

The video you haven’t finished are in the page of “My Progress”, welcome to resume them anytime.

What MasterClass You’re Interested in? Discover and Search for the Library

There are two ways you can find the classes you may have interests at MasterClass:

Searching for the library based on subjects

MasterClass separates all classes into subjects, every subject lists the masters and classes clearly. It is convenient for those users know what they prefer.

On MasterClass mobile, there are 5 tabs at the bottom. The third tab is the function of searching as above. And the fourth tab is like video as below, you can switch to different subjects by swiping left or right on your phone and scrolling through the feeds.

Discover the classes arranged by MasterClass

If you have no idea how to start your learning. The “Discover” page has many sections arranged by algorithms, high click numbers and editors.

For example, the section of “Lessons you’ll love “ is based on the register information generating by algorithms. The section of “Most Popular Today“ shows the hottest classes most people click. The other sections like “For You Today” and “The Short Cut” are produced by editors who create the highlights of classes.

Pricing

There is no free trial for Masterclass, now the annual membership is $189 and provides unlimited access to all classes. Depending on where you live, you may be charged taxes in addition to your annual membership price. If tax applies, you will see it stated separately on your emailed invoice. Tax rates are calculated based on your location or the billing information you provided at the time of purchase. MasterClass membership includes access to the mobile and TV apps, high-definition videos, and downloadable class workbooks.

If MasterClass isn’t for you, then email support@masterclass.com within 30 days of the date you purchase your subscription and Masterclass will offer a full refund. MasterClass is also can be a great gift for your children and friends. It offers eGifts for individual courses as well as our All Access Pass.

Thanks for your reading! Keep learning and moving forward.💪

Learn from the Best, Herbie Hancock and Carols Santana are Your Music Teachers — MaserClass was originally published in Music Tech Alliance on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

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.

Yousician — Learn to Play Music Like Video Game was originally published in Music Tech Alliance on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

NomadPlay is a music platform that allows musicians play alongside prestigious musicians which launches in 2019 founded by Clothilde Chalot and Hannelore Guittet.

In 2014, The CEO Clothilde Chalot and content manager Hannelore Guittet cofounded Digital Music Solutions in French and created music label NoMadMusic recording good quality classic music.

CEO Clothilde Chalot was a vice president for development of a sustainable legal environment for digital music in ESML which is the French union for online music services editors. Hannelore Guittet contributes her recording experience with Naïve, ECM and Decca companies in Digital Music Solutions. After 5 years, the classic music sheet service,NomadPlay launches in 2019.

At first, I just simply take NomadPlay as a normal sheet music website. Eventually I realize NomadPlay try to be different in current market, the music quality is amazing.

User Experience

NomadPlay’s slogan is “Making Classic Music Accessible to a Wider Audience”. I think the value of NomadPlay is exploring classic music you don’t know and play alongside with professional musicians.

Exploring Classic Music You Like

NomadPlay is available on web, iOS and Android, everyone can access NomadPlay account from your computer, laptop, tablet, smartphone, etc. Users can search classic music by song name, artists, instruments and levels. The search function in the app and web lists the artists and composers and instruments as below. For those people unfamiliar with classic music, you can google the composers or artists to find the songs you love.

After you find the song you like, you will want to know the background of this song, I think the flow leads me enjoy the fun and attraction of classic music. It also echos the slogan of NomadPlay:

Making Classic Music Accessible to a Wider Audience

When you find the song you like, you can press the “heart” icon to collect it into “my titles” in your account. It’s convenient to find the song and listening in the traffic.

Play Alongside with Musicians!

After you find a song you want to listen, pressing the “play button” , it will display the sheet music. Play and feel the music. If you learn to play violin, guitar, piano or other instruments, choose the instrument you want to play alongside.

NormadPlay claims they apply artificial-intelligence algorithm distinguishing the instruments of a song , separating into individual instrumental tracks. It makes users play alongside musicians.

You can choose the part and song speed which makes beginners easily practice. The sheet music can be noted by “annotate function”.

Pricing of NomadPlay

NomadPlay free members just can listen 30 seconds music, you can try 15 free-trial and decide whether to become NomadPlay premium members. It charges 149 NT dollars per month, you can cancel the subscription in NomadPlay website anytime.

For me, I feel the beauty of classic music first time during the experience of NomadPlay. Although we get used to separate music into different styles, for people, it’s just a question about you can accept or not. It’s a good start to listen classic music.

NomadPlay — Play Classic Music Alongside Renowned Musicians and Orchestras was originally published in Music Tech Alliance on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.