[HN Gopher] A deliberate practice app for guitar players who wan...
___________________________________________________________________
A deliberate practice app for guitar players who want to level up
Author : adityaathalye
Score : 434 points
Date : 2025-03-29 03:27 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.captrice.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.captrice.io)
| NullHypothesist wrote:
| This looks super cool. I love projects like this. Going to give
| it a try!
| JamesCoyne wrote:
| Anyone have recommendations for similar Android apps?
| davesmylie wrote:
| If you have a web browser on your android, you could try this
| one.
| naiquevin wrote:
| Captrice works in a browser on an android phone. But honestly,
| it's designed to be used on a desktop/laptop with a keyboard as
| there are some handy keybindings/shortcuts for easily
| controlling the metronome while playing the instrument.
|
| If you are specifically looking for an android app, I've only
| found one that comes closest - Instrumentive[1]. It allows
| tracking time for the entire practice session besides uploaded
| recording of the session. Whereas my use case is to track the
| duration of practice at every tempo. Trying to play for
| extended duration seems to work well for me in terms of
| building endurance and muscle memory.
|
| [1]: https://instrumentive.com/
| JamesCoyne wrote:
| thank-you
| LoFiSamurai wrote:
| Love it! Def going to use this.
| i_am_a_squirrel wrote:
| It took me about 5 minutes to understand what this is doing.
|
| For anyone else confused, it doesn't listen to you play, it just
| logs your use of the metronome and provides tabs.
|
| IMO the app would be cooler if it was simply the metronome app on
| a page. And if you want to track which song you are working on,
| then just add the ability to label a session. Could have a
| different mode for people who want it over videos, but usually
| when I'm practicing, I know the tab and am not watching a video
| while I practice.
| RajT88 wrote:
| I never quite got the setup right, but Rocksmith seemed to live
| up to the promise of "guitar hero on a real guitar". It came
| out during a time when spending my free time tinkering with
| computers became much more important than tinkering with
| guitars.
| deckar01 wrote:
| I really wanted to like Rocksmith, but the progressive
| difficulty didn't feel quite right. I would get stuck on new
| chords, try the recommended arcade games, get stuck on those
| even harder and less satisfying tasks, then lose motivation.
| By the time I picked it back up it didn't respond to the fact
| that my skills had regressed and I had to start a new
| profile. I spent more time noodling in the tone modeler than
| anything.
| bjelkeman-again wrote:
| I found the best way was to use the lessons and then the
| riff repeater on songs you want to learn, turn on all notes
| and slow down the speed until you can play a section. Then
| increase the speed or add a section.
| grujicd wrote:
| In retrospect, playing Rocksmith mostly improved my timing.
| And made me "keep the song going even if you miss a note".
| If you're just playing alone, without a metronome, backing
| track or a band, it's a habit to stop and repeat bad
| section.
| aequitas wrote:
| I went into Rocksmith because of this promise and for me it
| worked out well. Though it did not greatly improve my guitar
| playing skills beyond some of the basics, I do enjoy that I
| can interact in some way with the music that I like. It's
| like whistling along with your favourite song but with your
| hands, so the experience is much more engaging and it's feels
| more rewarding than guitar hero as the sound that I'm making
| sound a lot more like music than that clicking of buttons.
|
| Nowadays they have a subscription service, I don't know what
| the quality of that is. But I mostly still play on the "2014
| remastered" edition with a "real tone cable" on macOS, but I
| think they updated that and you can play with any "audio
| interface" device you like. There is also the customsforge
| library for unofficial songs, but quality varies.
|
| Between Rocksmith and Youtube tutorials, playing along with
| my favourite songs is the most fun I can get out off playing
| guitar that my skill level and time investment allows. I'll
| never play in a band or make a decent sounding song, but
| enjoying and getting enveloped by music is good enough.
| naiquevin wrote:
| Thanks for the feedback. I know the UI is not as intuitive as
| I'd like it to be for first time users. Multiple early users
| have told me that they expected it to either listen to them
| play or play back some audio. I am planning to record a small
| videos soon to clarify this.
|
| > IMO the app would be cooler if it was simply the metronome
| app on a page. And if you want to track which song you are
| working on, then just add the ability to label a session. Could
| have a different mode for people who want it over videos, but
| usually when I'm practicing, I know the tab and am not watching
| a video while I practice.
|
| The tab is mainly for (1) future reference, specially if you
| are creating your own exercises (2) sharing them with others.
| Sometimes I come up with short exercises myself that cover a
| specific technique or some picking pattern I am struggling
| with. Overtime I tend to forget those. In an earlier version,
| you could either add a tab or embed a video. But then I thought
| why not both! Feedback taken though, it should be fairly easy
| to make the tab/video section collapsible. Ability to label
| sessions in also on the roadmap.
| SethMurphy wrote:
| Recording and watching or listening to myself play has been
| very helpful for me. Even a temporary recording of just the
| current session, or most recent n minutes/beats would be
| nice. It's hard to evaluate execution in real time while
| performing it. To get it right as a user experience is not a
| simple task though. However, your great minimal feature set
| could also be seen as a plus to drive the practice routine
| efficiently no matter the quality, you'll get better too.
| naiquevin wrote:
| Agree about recording and listening to it. I also do it
| sometimes. My concern about implementing the
| record/playback functionality is that it may introduce a
| bunch of complexity considering it's a web app (permissions
| to record mic, browser compatibility etc, limits on local
| storage etc.).
| i_am_a_squirrel wrote:
| Nice yeah, a video would be great! Good work either way :D
| jppope wrote:
| There is something very very nice about the layout and the setup
| for this application. I can't quite put my finger on it but they
| got something right.
| chimpanzee wrote:
| Agreed. For me it is the ample whitespace and the controlled
| use of color.
| naiquevin wrote:
| Thanks! Much credit goes to the Bulma[1] css framework, I
| guess. I am mostly a backend dev. I've just used bulma for the
| most part and tried to avoid anything fancy.
|
| [1]: https://bulma.io/
| chamomeal wrote:
| Aw man this is great timing. I'm just getting back into guitar
| for the millionth time. I'll definitely try this out tonight
| scythe wrote:
| One thing I started doing the last time I picked up guitar
| again, which was about two months ago, was wearing disposable
| nitrile gloves on my left hand. They're extremely thin and
| durable, and have minimal impact on dexterity, but allowed me
| to practice for over an hour a day with no residual pain the
| next day. It was always possible to practice through the pain
| on one day, but where I would slip up is skipping a day because
| my fingers still hurt. (And skipping a day turns into two...)
| I've still developed calluses, too, but I'm not quite ready to
| give them up. I'm much happier with my progress than I was any
| previous time, probably because I never skip a day of practice
| anymore.
|
| It's not the most eco-friendly thing I've ever done, but I
| figure it's a pretty small amount of plastic in the grand
| scheme of things (especially in my line of work).
| captn3m0 wrote:
| A little bit of googling tells me that "Nitrile finger cots"
| exist, that only cover your fingers.
| timrichard wrote:
| One interesting thing to note is that many people use more
| force than necessary with their fretting hand. This was
| certainly true of me. Some hold the guitar neck with some
| sort of death-grip.
|
| One useful exercise is to fret a note as you normally do, and
| play it. Then keep picking or plucking that note with
| gradually less pressure applied by your fretting fingers. At
| some point, the note will choke and not sound out any more.
| Then, a little more pressure can be applied to make it sound
| out again. That minimal level of force is going to be the
| ideal amount for stamina and to prevent injury. There's
| nothing to be gained by pressing harder, in fact you can bend
| notes slightly sharp by pressing really hard. In many forms
| of instrument practice, hand tension is often the enemy
| (especially for faster soloing).
| rwmj wrote:
| What worked for me was to pick up the guitar _every day_ , and
| play it for 5 minutes (or more, obviously). No exceptions to
| the minimum 5 minutes every day rule. I'm pretty good at cowboy
| chords, barre chords and a bit of blues after around 10 months
| of this.
| phn wrote:
| And a great way to pick up the guitar every day is to have it
| ready to go at all times. Keep it outside the bag/case and at
| arms reach.
| rwmj wrote:
| And an acoustic rather than an electric (although electrics
| are great too).
| 6stringmerc wrote:
| Though I haven't used this app I do plan on trying it out when I
| get my guitars back. I'm impressed at the effort, the resources,
| and the giving it free for the sake of spreading joy in music.
|
| The guitar is a difficult instrument to learn, especially in the
| beginning phases. After 30 years it's a conversation I have
| frequently - people try and give up a lot. If this can help some
| folks stick with it and become better understanding and practiced
| with their instrument, I hope that happens again and again and
| again. Every generation needs guitarists, as it's the instrument
| of expressive rebellion the world round.
|
| Great share and a Bill and Ted EXCELLENT weedly weedly weee!
| foobarian wrote:
| I've tried playing guitar on and off my whole life over last 40
| years and I can't believe that it took me until this year to
| try, on a whim, a classical guitar. Suddenly my fat fingers can
| fit next to each other making an A or B chord, and they don't
| hurt and blister after a short session of play. Seriously make
| sure to not overlook non-steel guitars if you're having
| trouble.
| dboreham wrote:
| Some of the all time great bluesmen had fat sausage fingers
| so there's a bit more to it I suspect. After the same 40
| years I got irritated one day and searched YouTube for "how
| do I play a C chord without muting strings" and found that my
| finger and wrist position was all wrong. Also spent a bunch
| of time watching Frampton, studying where his fingers go and
| what they look like.
| dragandj wrote:
| For the C chord, you should be muting the low E string,
| though :)
| 6stringmerc wrote:
| As a guy with "little girl hands" as John 5 jokingly calls
| it, I have a reverse issue with the classical and some jazz
| arch tops! SRV had giant bear paws by the way. Buckethead has
| alien hands (no fair).
|
| If you're game, on electric you might enjoy a baritone scale
| guitar. I got an LP style 27" by Agile (PRS makes a nice SE
| model) and it's a neat dynamic.
|
| Very glad you shared about your experience. Just as a note,
| don't go near any EVH signature models - the neck and
| fretboard is like a Telecaster but smaller!
| naiquevin wrote:
| Thanks for the kind words.
|
| > people try and give up a lot. If this can help some folks
| stick with it and become better understanding and practiced
| with their instrument, I hope that happens again and again and
| again
|
| This resonates so much.
| 6stringmerc wrote:
| You're welcome and much deserved! I'm grateful for the
| continued passion for the instrument. This helpful resource
| is a solid win for a hard-to-please community haha!
| naiquevin wrote:
| Hello! I am the one behind this app. A friend who thinks I am not
| promoting it enough submitted it to HN (not complaining at all,
| thanks Aditya!).
|
| I had also posted on the "What are you working on?" thread
| yesterday - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43531684.
|
| Happy to answer any questions.
| adityaathalye wrote:
| Thanks HN, for helping me force Vineet's hand into accepting
| that the app is worthy of being used by not-Vineet.
|
| He demo'd Captrice last week, to a bunch of friends here in
| Bangalore. And I _knew_ he was going straight to the "infinite
| bikeshed", based on his tepid answers to questions like "Wow
| this is cool! So... Launch, when?".
|
| Plus, you made m'dude earn his "First Internet Dollar". To
| whomever did the "buy me a coffee" thing... you're awesome!
| There is a stark psychological "before/after" of earning your
| F.I.D. Now he can't ever go back.
|
| As someone stuck in his own Infinite Bikeshed, I take heart
| from this event, and hope to follow in his footsteps sooner
| than later :)
| RickS wrote:
| Now this is a good friend! Love to see it.
| jonfromsf wrote:
| Good for you Aditya!
| greazy wrote:
| Looks like a great app.
|
| For those who can't read sheet music, can I suggest a guitar
| tabs?
| Rygian wrote:
| The very first screenshot I see in the website is guitar
| tabs.
| pc86 wrote:
| Not only that, everything I see is tabs - I don't see music
| notation anywhere and I'm looking through exercises right
| now.
| naiquevin wrote:
| Yes, music notation is configured to be hidden as I felt
| it would take up extra space. But recently I myself felt
| the need for it when editing tabs that had triplets.
| Beams are not visible in tabs. Planning to add a button
| soon to toggle notation display.
| wyclif wrote:
| That is great to hear. Notation is essential, especially
| for musicians coming to the guitar from another
| instrument.
| bluGill wrote:
| I would suggest learning standard notation. Tabs are useful
| (since you often have a choice of what string to play any
| given note on, but which you choose matters both because
| different strings sound different, and because some strings
| will make the next note unreachable), but standard notation
| has benefits too. If you know both you have a chance of
| playing along with anyone else - most people will hand you
| standard notation when they want you to play background to
| solo, or play with in a group with you (this depends on what
| type of group - some groups will have tab some will not).
| benzible wrote:
| Guitar tab is uniquely suited for exercises because it
| directly shows which string and fret to play, which is
| important since the same note can be played in multiple
| positions on the fretboard, unlike an instrument like the
| piano where std notation does show you exactly what to
| play. It also clearly communicates guitar-specific
| techniques (bends, slides, hammer-ons, pull-offs) that are
| awkward to represent in traditional notation. For exercises
| specifically, tab shows you where your hand should be
| positioned on the neck, making it easier to develop proper
| technique and muscle memory.
|
| BTW the original comment didn't make sense since the app
| does support tab, just wanted to make this point. Also not
| saying that learning std notation isn't valuable although
| many excellent players never learn it.
| cma wrote:
| You can annotate position changes onto a traditional
| score too, in most cases without it getting too noisy,
| fwiw
| emacsen wrote:
| This looks super cool, and very similar to a need I have,
| except I'm not learning the guitar.
|
| I'm learning my first (serious) instrument and I've decided on
| the lyre, since it's similar to other string instruments
| (guitar, ukulele, traditional harp) but a bit easier.
|
| Will you support other instruments for lessons, other than the
| guitar?
| naiquevin wrote:
| I am going through the alphatex documentation in more detail
| and chances are that any stringed instrument could already be
| supported. Checkout the tuning section -
| https://alphatab.net/docs/alphatex/metadata#tuning.
|
| It might even work for piano as well, there's an example here
| - https://alphatab.net/docs/alphatex/notes/#multiple-voices
| emacsen wrote:
| Awesome!
| smelendez wrote:
| I'd think about considering a more common instrument because
| you'll have a bigger support network.
|
| You can find guitar teachers literally anywhere, guitar tabs
| are all over the internet, and you probably have friends who
| can give you a few pointers if you get stuck. Ukelele and
| bass guitar aren't that far behind.
| emacsen wrote:
| When I was in college, in 1996, several computer science
| professors told me I was playing with toys and no serious
| organization would use Linux as an operating system.
|
| In 1997, I asked a math professor about a statistics
| program, and he said R would never be used for real work.
|
| In 1998, I was told that sure, I could learn Python if I
| wanted, but I should learn Java, but if I insisted on a
| scripting language, I should stick with Perl.
|
| I don't use tools because I think they're popular, I do
| what I enjoy.
|
| Also you didn't ask me why it might be easier for me to
| learn the lyre, which has to do with physical limitations I
| have.
| SpaceManNabs wrote:
| God tier app. Up the irons.
| lewisleclerc wrote:
| Is it just me or the reviews here look like fake reviews on
| Amazon?
| hexie wrote:
| This is awesome! I made a very similar tool to help myself
| practice progressions specifically for banjo: https://banjo-
| rolls-deluxe.twait.dev/
|
| Far fewer features than your app, but just having a tool to help
| nail down the muscle memory of pre-built progressions has been
| massively helpful for me as a banjo-player-in-training.
|
| Your exercise builder is awesome and something I was planning on
| building into my site, might take some inspo!
| naiquevin wrote:
| This is so cool. Loved the UI, simple and to the point.
| tow21 wrote:
| Brilliant! Literally my first thought when I saw the original
| submission was "I wish there was a banjo version"!
|
| Definitely will be using your app.
| 6Az4Mj4D wrote:
| What is the best way to learn Guitar as a total noob? Can this
| app help
| card_zero wrote:
| What worked for me (when I was a kid):
|
| 1. Get a very cheap guitar with nylon strings
|
| 2. Tune it to a major chord
|
| 3. Learn to barre, that is, hold down all the strings with one
| finger.
|
| 4. Play twelve-bar blues, just the chords, until sick.
|
| 6. When unable to bear any more, look for ways to change it up.
|
| Edit: Look, here's the reasoning. First, the cheap guitar is
| not intimidating. The strings are soft. The tension is low. It
| isn't heavy, you can pick it up easily. It isn't valuable, so
| you can throw it down in disgust. Second, by playing something
| completely braindead, you get lots of basics sorted out about
| ergonomics and how hard to press the strings and how to strum
| and general confidence. Thirdly, because you're playing an
| actual tune right from the start, it's rewarding, and when the
| reward wears off you already have a base to work from which can
| be improved in small ways to seek further reward.
|
| _Incremental_ ways, in fact, which is a possible alternative
| to the word "deliberate".
| naiquevin wrote:
| Total noob as in yet to buy your first guitar? I'd highly
| recommend taking offline lessons from a local guitar teacher,
| at least for a few months. Some things are difficult to unlearn
| and relearn later on. This app can be used to practice the
| lessons the teacher would give you.
| bluGill wrote:
| If the place where you buy your guitar doesn't have lessons
| then buy your guitar elsewhere! There are music stores all
| over and nearly all of them have guitar teachers on staff -
| often the owner teaches guitar himself. If you want to play
| something weird (harp?) you might be stuck with online only
| lessons buying something without playing it from the
| internet. However most instruments have a local music shop
| and you should buy from them if possible. Note that guitar
| the patterns seems to be lessons are in the store you buy
| from. Piano you are generally better off with an unrelated
| teacher, and violin seems to be always unrelated private
| lessons - all are okay.
|
| I would consider a teacher important enough that I would
| borrow/rent an instrument to try out teachers and only after
| you find a teacher you like buy. It is typically better to
| play an instrument you have never heard of before taught by a
| teacher you "click" with than buy the instrument you think
| you want but not find a good teacher.
|
| That said, online lessons are great supplements to your
| teacher. And if you are broke (between jobs) often cheap.
| Sometimes online lessons can teach you things that your local
| teacher cannot (as opposed to will not because you are not
| ready). However the local teacher will also correct things
| that you will lie to yourself about.
| dboreham wrote:
| YouTube.
| j4coh wrote:
| I'm not sure why, but so many guitarists I've met who learned
| from YouTube are bad. I'm not sure why, maybe they are
| replacing watching with practice? No custom feedback from
| real musicians who hear you play? YouTubers are motivated to
| overcomplicate things so you keep watching more videos? I'm
| not sure.
|
| It may also be the context, I play original, improvisational
| music with people/in front of an audience and YouTube may be
| particularly bad at preparing people for this.
| andelink wrote:
| Is anything really, _truly_ learnable from YouTube? It's
| the ultimate "feel productive" placebo out there.
|
| I'm ready to be downvoted.
| j4coh wrote:
| I agree with you and upvoted, but saying things like
| being ready for downvotes is the surest way to get them
| if only for commenting on downvotes. :)
| marliechiller wrote:
| How do you mean? How does youtubing a lecture differ from
| sitting in the lecture hall itself for example? I'd argue
| both arent great learning experiences, but lectures seem
| to be viable enough to make up the bulk of contact time
| at university
| belter wrote:
| That is also the secret of most self-paced online
| platforms like Udemy, Pluralsight and many others.The
| metrics they don't like to share. Most users never watch
| videos until the end, they buy courses but never start
| them or complete less than 4% to 10% of the course.
|
| You can see sometimes course authors acknowledging these
| metrics. Companies training departments just wash their
| hands and say, we have these thousands of courses made
| available for our employees... :-)
| bluGill wrote:
| Yes, but it is very very hard to find the personal
| discipline needed to do so. If you watch mindlessly you
| will learn very little. If you watch, then do the
| exercises/practice (depending on the topic different
| things are needed) you can learn a lot. Almost nobody
| does, but youtube and classroom lectures that are known
| to work are very similar - the difference is classrooms
| have various ways to get people to do the other homework.
| dragandj wrote:
| To be honest, most guitarists out there, except for the
| small percentage of top professional performers are bad,
| regardless of how they've learned.
| j4coh wrote:
| That's true to an extent, though I think there are good
| local players in most every town, but then using this
| definition I mean the people who learned on YouTube are
| exceptionally bad.
| balfirevic wrote:
| > No custom feedback from real musicians who hear you play?
|
| Of course people who learn at home on their own will, on
| average, be worse than people going out and playing with
| other musicians. That would likely be even more true if
| they bought a VHS tape with lessons, or book with a CD.
| dragandj wrote:
| justinguitar.com
|
| Completely FREE, while also being super detailed and
| comprehensive!
| Jataman606 wrote:
| Very good online resource (and free!) is JustinGuitar guitar
| course[1]. It begins from absolute nothing, no prior knowledge
| required. And it works for both acoustic and electric guitars.
| Also Justin is great, understanding and aproachable teacher
| (even though course is online). Only downside is you will need
| a lot of self discipline to go through it, but it definetly
| worked for me.
|
| [1] https://www.justinguitar.com/
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| Finding a great teacher helps the most. I self-taught mostly
| and had a teacher for the first ten years. Learned some not-
| great habits with both right and left hand that took me some
| time to unlearn.
|
| Find a teacher that can play the stuff you want to eventually
| play. Then take some lessons and assess whether you enjoy the
| process of working with them. Learning scales and doing
| exercises to get better will feel like a grind no matter what.
| A good teacher will give you enough variety to stimulate growth
| and make you have an appetite for the process of improvement.
|
| Edit: meant to mention that buying a used guitar is a great way
| to save money, too. You can buy from Guitar Center's used
| section and have a 45 day return period. If you live near a
| store, you can just take it back there, as well. If you're not
| sure how to assess the instrument, you can buy something from
| there, take it to a guitar tech and have them check it out/set
| it up to make sure it's ok.
| pivic wrote:
| I'd remove 'deliberate' from all copy as it reduces faith in the
| product; it's worse than 'opinionated'...
| rukuu001 wrote:
| I think it's good to differentiate between 'practice that makes
| a difference' and 'noodling about,' in the words of my old
| teacher, which is practice that doesn't concentrate on
| improving anything specific.
|
| Is there a different word you'd choose? 'Intentional' is
| equally misused.
| naiquevin wrote:
| I mean "deliberate" to be the adjective for "practice" and not
| "app".
|
| Thanks for the suggestion though. Definitely something to think
| about. I personally hate "opinionated" too.
| ammojamo wrote:
| Just as another data point, I think the word 'deliberate' is
| entirely appropriate as it differentiates between 'casual'
| practice (e.g. just playing through a bunch of songs and hoping
| you get better) vs deliberate practice where you are working on
| a specific exercise with a specific goal. I can't really relate
| to what the parent post is saying.
| glial wrote:
| I hear what you're saying. On the other hand, "deliberate
| practice" is a term of art.
| bravoetch wrote:
| Deliberate practice is a jargon term in the world of learning a
| musical instrument.
| webprofusion wrote:
| Cool! I guess there needs to be a way for people to share new
| lessons to practise, it gets complicated with copyright pretty
| fast.
|
| For real "lessons" you'd probably need to start at chord
| progressions, go into scales and how the chords relate back to
| those, then move to these types of soloing technique lessons.
|
| AlphaTab is the star here https://github.com/CoderLine/alphaTab -
| it's been maintained tirelessly for years by Daniel Kuschny.
|
| I've started to build this type of lessons sitea few times in the
| past and never really got it together enough to release anything.
| I've done scale/chord/arpeggio tools:
| https://github.com/webprofusion/scalex
| zozbot234 wrote:
| What do you need "scales" practice for on guitar? It's a
| totally relative instrument except when playing on empty
| strings, so there's only one "scale" pattern that you have to
| learn. It's nothing like a keyboard!
| compiler-guy wrote:
| There are dozens of scales to learn, with roots all over the
| fretboard. Each useful for different things. Just the basic
| minor pentatonic requires five different patterns. Eight note
| scales require eight different patterns, with various roots
| depending on the mode you want to play.
|
| The Guitar Grimoirr scale book is 200 pages!
| card_zero wrote:
| Yeah, this is about modes, really.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mode_(music)
| zozbot234 wrote:
| By "pattern" you mean starting the scale on a different
| note/step? (or, equivalently, rolling the interval
| arrangement and ending up with one that's seemingly
| "different"?) That seems like a trivial change - if you can
| play C-D-E-F etc. you can play D-E-F etc. Why does it have
| to be "learned" separately?
| card_zero wrote:
| No, there are different scales. For a start, you can play
| a minor scale instead of a major one, or you can play a
| chromatic one (all the notes, a semitone at a time).
| Sticking to the notes of a scale when playing a melody is
| playing in a particular _mode,_ for instance the
| pentatonic scale is a blues mode. Several modes are from
| ancient Greece and create strange stiff-sounding moods. I
| can 't claim great consciousness of the mode/scale used
| in any familiar songs (other than the pentatonic), but
| this is a thing and it goes on a lot. Popular in the
| technical end of thrash metal.
|
| Edit: the minor scale doesn't count because C major = A
| minor if you start on A, fair enough, forget that one.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| > the minor scale doesn't count because C major = A minor
| if you start on A, fair enough, forget that one.
|
| It might actually count since the harmonic minor exists.
| But this is just stressing the point that all of those
| "separate" scales might perhaps be best introduced as
| simple variations of the usual diatonic scale. Then sure,
| you might want to practice them a little bit, but at
| least you should have "learned" them in that you are not
| wondering what you're _supposed_ to play.
| card_zero wrote:
| Even though they don't all have seven notes? (Why is a
| seven-note scale called "diatonic" anyway, that should
| mean a scale of two notes, doesn't sound very exciting.)
| moefh wrote:
| > Why is a seven-note scale called "diatonic" anyway
|
| The prefix of "diatonic" is "dia" ("through"), not "di"
| ("two"), but nobody really knows what exactly its origin
| (diatonos, "diatonos") was supposed to mean[1]: it's
| probably either something like "through the tones" or
| "stretched out tones".
|
| The second meaning is closer to the modern definition we
| have for diatonic: the 7 (out of 12) notes are selected
| to be as stretched out as possible in the octave, that
| is, each adjacent note is either 1 or 2 semitones apart,
| and the two 1-semitone-apart pairs are as far as possible
| from each other (note that the second requirement
| excludes e.g. the ascending melodic minor[2] from being
| considered diatonic, even though it has 7 notes).
|
| [1] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/diatonic
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jazz_minor_scale
| card_zero wrote:
| Wikt doesn't give any other word where dia- means
| "stretched out". It's usually "across". I guess a
| stretched-out thing is stretched across a space.
| d1sxeyes wrote:
| Diastasis recti for example refers to stomach muscles
| being stretched (normally during pregnancy).
| bluGill wrote:
| Which seven notes matters. At least on a guitar you only
| get 7 or 12. Some pipe organs have 15 notes which allows
| them to sound much better when you choose the right one
| (but some keys are horrible despite having 15 notes to
| choose from where as the standard 12 is an acceptable
| compromise for anything even if it worse where the 15
| work). Violin gives you infinite choices, and I've seen
| keyboards that have 50+ (look up microtonal music). You
| can also remove the frets from a guitar - I've heard of
| one person (exactly one person) doing that.
| dboreham wrote:
| Allan Holdsworth enters the chat..
| d1sxeyes wrote:
| They don't really need to be learned differently. They do
| need to be practised though.
| avemuri wrote:
| The patterns are different on different string sets. You
| don't need to learn DEF with the same pattern again, but
| you do need to learn all the ways of playing CDE
| zozbot234 wrote:
| But then the pattern across strings is also "relative"
| and only depends on the guitar tuning you're playing. For
| instance in the standard tuning, two neighboring strings
| are always a perfect fourth apart (five frets) unless
| they're the G-B strings in which case they're a major
| third apart (four frets). So if you know where you'd be
| playing a note on one string, that same note is just five
| frets back or four frets back on the next one. Which is
| again a totally "relative" framing that works for any
| individual note the same way. You can even figure out
| where you'd have to play if the tuning was non-standard.
| These patterns only have to be practiced a little bit,
| there's not really any need to learn them from scratch.
|
| (If anything, I would want a "guitar learning" app to
| automatically come up with its own exercises, similar to
| ear training apps for learning to recognize intervals -
| and using something like a spaced repetition approach to
| evaluate how the user is doing.)
| fastasucan wrote:
| Sounds like you answered your own question:
|
| > What do you need "scales" practice for on guitar?
|
| > These patterns only have to be practiced a little bit
| compiler-guy wrote:
| Nearly every popular-music guitar lesson series in the
| world teaches the five various pentatonic patterns--the
| few exceptions being those that focus on classical guitar
| or non-western music. You might find this article
| interesting.
|
| https://music.stackexchange.com/questions/43516/can-
| someone-...
|
| There is definitely theory to how they are constructed,
| and you are right that the shifts and adjustments can be
| derived if you think about it and practice it. But that's
| just a longer way to the five patterns.
| cma wrote:
| The other patterns for the basic scales are just the
| missing notes too, like black keys being pentatonics and
| white being a traditional scale.
| Davertron wrote:
| This is why learning guitar when I was younger was so
| difficult to me; people just presented things like "you
| have to learn these 5 scale patterns" but they didn't
| really go into why, it was just "memorize this stuff and
| then you'll be good!", but I hate rote memorization
| without understanding the underlying principles. I'm old
| and didn't have the internet back then so I was just
| learning from various books or friends and it was slow
| going, but I still see things like this presented in tons
| of Youtube videos today.
|
| I've since gone back and learned a bit of music theory as
| an adult and it's been super helpful understanding the
| underlying principles so I can work things out vs. having
| to just memorize things without understanding why they
| work.
|
| I think then you can go practice the various scale
| patterns and get good at them with the knowledge that you
| can always work out the scale from first principles if
| you need to.
|
| Different strokes for different folks though I guess, I'm
| sure there's an argument to be made for not overwhelming
| folks with too much theory out of the gate. Not sure if I
| had started with a bunch of theory if I would have stuck
| with it when I was younger.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| > not overwhelming folks with too much theory out of the
| gate.
|
| Thing is, it's not even "too much theory". It really is
| just a simple tone-semitone pattern and a few bare facts
| about how the usual guitar tuning works, that you'd know
| anyway if you've ever had to tune your guitar by hand.
| That's _all_ it takes to make the guitar explainable from
| first principles. Then sure, you can practice the
| "patterns" all you want for convenience's sake, but you
| don't have to commit anything to memory that you could
| not figure out again from scratch if needed.
| MattPalmer1086 wrote:
| No, a pattern does not refer to changing the key of the
| scale.
|
| A pattern is a way of playing a scale across the strings
| without having to move your hand. To play the same scale
| in the same key at a different position on the neck, the
| pattern of notes is different.
|
| You have to learn 5 different patterns to be able to play
| a single pentatonic scale anywhere on the neck.
|
| Obviously they all start at a different position if you
| want to use a different key - that is easy. Still 5
| patterns to learn though just for that one scale.
| markovs_gun wrote:
| Scales are definitely important. Building up the reflexes to
| just play a scale at a given point helps a lot especially
| when playing with other people.
| scythe wrote:
| Scale patterns on a guitar are optimized for A: starting
| (lowest note 1) on a particular finger on a particular string
| and B: not sliding your hand up and down too much. For
| example, I know five major scale patterns: two start on the
| first string, two on the second, and one on the third.
| nathan_douglas wrote:
| Blues scales, various jazz scales, scales influenced by ragas
| or the countless other music traditions from around the
| world, microtonal scales, nonstandard tunings like
| fifths/DADGAD/DADF#A, scales with different fingering and
| picking patterns to increase movement speed in different
| directions, scales that are adjusted to use or avoid open
| strings because of the effects on ornamentation/drones/other
| techniques, scales that include sweeping sections or are
| entirely composed of sweeping arpeggios, etc.
| thatcat wrote:
| Yea you can play the scales at any starting position to
| change the root note and the scale remains the same fret
| spacing as if you started with an open string, only now it
| starts at the fret you chose for the root. See 'fretboard
| logic' for more info.
| naiquevin wrote:
| Captrice allows you to export an exercise collection. You get a
| json file that can be shared with others or copied to another
| device where it can be imported back into the app.
|
| > AlphaTab is the star here
|
| Absolutely! High quality stuff. I wasn't aware of the person
| behind the project. Thanks for mentioning it.
| user3939382 wrote:
| Maybe someone can give me advice. I have no talent for guitar,
| I've only ever become decent when I practice for more than an
| hour every day. However due to my acoustic, this creates horrible
| calluses on my fingers. Is that just the way it is?
| nobodywasishere wrote:
| Yes unfortunately, I've grown to be used to it over time
| though. Sometimes will press my fingers into random objects to
| make sure I keep them up.
|
| Playing electric guitar also helps immensely due to the thinner
| strings and lower action.
| karlgrz wrote:
| One of the best pieces of advice I got when I started ages ago
| was to just put electric strings on the acoustic. If you're
| just practicing in your bedroom it will be much easier to play
| than on stiff acoustic strings. Give it a shot.
|
| When you're ready to record then you can put acoustic strings
| on it, heh :-)
| grimoald wrote:
| Or use nylon strings for concert guitars.
| wyclif wrote:
| Or just use a nylon string, classical style or "Spanish"
| guitar for practice, even if you play something else in
| public. Nylon string guitars are easier on your fretting
| hand and allow you to practice longer without fatigue.
| andelink wrote:
| Oh they're not horrible, you need those calluses. I so badly
| wish I still had mine. It'd make picking back up my guitar so
| much easier. Now my fingertips are soft and useless.
| Ambix wrote:
| On acoustic with light or medium strings - it's OK. I used to
| flatten them with nail file from time to time. But it might be
| much easier on your finger tips just to start with electric and
| then progress towards acoustic.
| wyclif wrote:
| I came here to say something similar to this. The action on
| most electric guitars (assuming they're set up properly) is a
| lot more forgiving for beginners than steel-string acoustics
| which are often set up with higher action in order to improve
| the volume.
| naiquevin wrote:
| > when I practice for more than an hour every day
|
| > this creates horrible calluses on my fingers
|
| I think both are good problems to have :-). Consistently
| practicing for more than an hour every day is quite difficult
| unless you are professionally into it. If you are able to
| manage it then that's commendable. And once the calluses are
| formed, it doesn't hurt as much. A downside of skipping
| practice for a week, besides the practice itself, is that the
| calluses go away.
| uglycoyote wrote:
| This looks neat. I'm interested in some of the more advanced
| exercises like the Rick Beato one here
| (https://app.captrice.io/?eid=ph79of6zlotm8y24mc4) but a couple
| of things prevented me from truly attempting it:
|
| Firstly, the tab for that exercise is long enough to need a
| scroll bar, and so I don't understand how one is supposed to play
| along with that tab to a metronome... am I expected to operate
| the scroll bar every couple of measures while still staying in
| time with the metronome? So I would suggest either auto-scroll,
| or better yet just find a way to get all 12 measures of the
| exercise to fit on the screen at the same time. I have a big
| enough monitor that it would fit.
|
| Secondly, although you have the link to the embedded video
| player, I wouldn't be able to keep the intended sound of the
| exercise in my head long enough that I would feel confident I was
| playing the exercise right later. The app really feels like it
| needs a synthesized guitar sound that would play the notes of the
| exercise, so that I could play it along with the synthesized
| version and know whether I was hitting the right note. It would
| be OK if it sounded cheesy -- that would be better than nothing,
| and then once I was confident that I had the correct sequence
| down, I would disable the synthetic sound.
| naiquevin wrote:
| > Firstly, the tab for that exercise is long enough to need a
| scroll bar, and so I don't understand how one is supposed to
| play along with that tab to a metronome.
|
| I agree, this app is not great for learning a piece of music
| but it works well for practicing an already learnt piece. This
| is how I have been using it for myself.
|
| As I mentioned in another comment, the tab and the video are
| mainly for reference i.e. to answer the question what to
| practice. Earlier, it only allowed either a tab or a video. At
| some point I added support for both (because why not!) Looks
| like that's causing some confusion.
|
| I like your idea of playing along with a synthesized sound in
| the learning phase, although I haven't tried it myself. I
| believe alphatab (the lib used for tablature) does support midi
| playback which could make it function like guitar pro. Need to
| see how much complexity it introduces (mainly related to
| getting both the metronome and the midi to play together, never
| tried it). Perhaps there could be two separate modes to keep
| things simple - a learning mode without metronome and a
| practice mode (same as current). Won't promise anything but
| will at least do a POC.
|
| Thanks for the detailed feedback.
|
| PS: The link you shared wouldn't work for anyone else, as it
| only exists on your device thanks to the local-only-ness. Have
| some thinking to do to make this more intuitive.
| osigurdson wrote:
| I think the following would make a killer app in this category:
|
| - App listens to your playing
|
| - Identifies your weaknesses
|
| - Creates a curated lesson plan
|
| - App actively listens as you progress through the plan and
| adjusts
| MrksHfmn wrote:
| Great, thank you! Does it play the tabs? I only hear the
| metronome clicking... Is there any option to import? Some kind of
| Guitar Pro import would be nice. I think gp-files are not
| propietary.
| naiquevin wrote:
| No, it doesn't play the tabs. The primary use case to help with
| practicing something you've already learnt.
|
| Import from Guitar Pro sounds like a good idea and the format
| doesn't seem to be proprietary based on a quick google search.
| Will explore further. Thanks!
| Ambix wrote:
| This so cool! Would love to have some time to train myself with
| those exercises more
| a_c wrote:
| Nice app! I wonder if there is a piano version
| kristianp wrote:
| Does this kind of thing exist for piano?
| euroderf wrote:
| Or for bass guitar ?
| naiquevin wrote:
| I haven't tried using it for bass guitar but I believe it
| should just work? I assume you want tabs for bass guitar.
| Alphatab, the tablature editor supports bass guitar and other
| stringed instruments too. I guess it even supports notation
| for drums/percussion.
|
| For that matter, I think the app should work for practicing
| any instrument that can be practiced with a metronome if you
| ignore tablature (which is only for reference anyway).
|
| For now I want focus on guitar as that's my primary use case
| but I'd love to extend it for other instruments in future.
| naiquevin wrote:
| I am going through the alphatex docs in more detail and
| looks like other stringed instruments and even piano are
| already supported.
|
| Check this for bass guitar -
| https://alphatab.net/docs/alphatex/metadata#tuning
|
| Check the example here for piano -
| https://alphatab.net/docs/alphatex/notes/#multiple-voices
| pc86 wrote:
| I think the "Why?" link on the warning not to edit library
| imports just goes to #
| naiquevin wrote:
| Thanks for reporting. I'll check this.
| naiquevin wrote:
| If any one's looking for the answer to why it's not recommended
| to edit library imports - when you import collections from the
| library, you can receive updates whenever the collection author
| publishes a new version. These updates might include new
| exercises or improvements to existing ones. However, if you've
| made your own modifications to the collection, these personal
| changes will be overwritten when you update to the newer
| version.
|
| It's mentioned on the faqs page - https://www.captrice.io/user-
| guide/faqs.html. Missed updating the link. Will push a fix
| shortly.
| TehShrike wrote:
| Any plans to add an option to render the tablature for bass
| guitar?
| naiquevin wrote:
| Looks like it's already supported in Alphatex -
| https://alphatab.net/docs/alphatex/metadata#tuning. You will
| need to specify the following metadata in the tab editor
|
| \tuning G2 D2 A1 E1 B0
| raincole wrote:
| Is there something similar for keyboard?
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-04-01 23:01 UTC)