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A deliberate practice app for guitar players who want to level up
- henriquez 2y ago[flagged]
- NullHypothesist 2y agoThis looks super cool. I love projects like this. Going to give it a try!
- JamesCoyne 2y agoAnyone have recommendations for similar Android apps?
- davesmylie 2y agoIf you have a web browser on your android, you could try this one.
- naiquevin 2y agoCaptrice 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/ https://instrumentive.com/
- JamesCoyne 2y agothank-you
- LoFiSamurai 2y agoLove it! Def going to use this.
- i_am_a_squirrel 2y agoIt 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 2y agoI 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 2y agoI 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 2y agoI 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 2y agoIn 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.
- jppope 2y agoThere 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 2y agoAgreed. For me it is the ample whitespace and the controlled use of color.
- naiquevin 2y agoThanks! 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/ https://bulma.io/
- chamomeal 2y agoAw man this is great timing. I’m just getting back into guitar for the millionth time. I’ll definitely try this out tonight
- scythe 2y agoOne 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 2y agoA little bit of googling tells me that “Nitrile finger cots” exist, that only cover your fingers.
- timrichard 2y agoOne 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).
- 2y ago
- 6stringmerc 2y agoThough 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 2y agoI'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 2y agoSome 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 2y agoFor the C chord, you should be muting the low E string, though :)
- 6stringmerc 2y agoAs 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 2y agoHello! 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 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43531684. Happy to answer any questions.
- adityaathalye 2y agoThanks 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 :)
- greazy 2y agoLooks like a great app. For those who can't read sheet music, can I suggest a guitar tabs?
- Rygian 2y agoThe very first screenshot I see in the website is guitar tabs.
- 2y ago
- lewisleclerc 2y agoIs it just me or the reviews here look like fake reviews on Amazon?
- hexie 2y agoThis is awesome! I made a very similar tool to help myself practice progressions specifically for banjo: https://banjo-rolls-deluxe.twait.dev/ 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!
- 6Az4Mj4D 2y agoWhat is the best way to learn Guitar as a total noob? Can this app help
- card_zero 2y agoWhat 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 2y agoTotal 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 2y agoIf 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.
- pivic 2y agoI'd remove 'deliberate' from all copy as it reduces faith in the product; it's worse than 'opinionated'…
- rukuu001 2y agoI 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 2y agoI 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 2y agoJust 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 2y agoI hear what you're saying. On the other hand, "deliberate practice" is a term of art.
- bravoetch 2y agoDeliberate practice is a jargon term in the world of learning a musical instrument.
- webprofusion 2y agoCool! 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 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 https://github.com/webprofusion/scalex
- zozbot234 2y agoWhat 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 2y agoThere 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 2y agoYeah, this is about modes, really. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mode_(music) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mode_(music)
- zozbot234 2y agoBy "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?
- user3939382 2y agoMaybe 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 2y agoYes 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 2y agoOne 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 2y agoOr use nylon strings for concert guitars.
- wyclif 2y agoOr 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.
- tzs 2y agoWould the difference in fretboard width cause any problems? A classical guitar fretboard is typically 52 mm wide, around 20% wider than a typical acoustic guitar or electric guitar fretboard's 43 mm wide fretboard.
- uglycoyote 2y agoThis looks neat. I'm interested in some of the more advanced exercises like the Rick Beato one here (https://app.captrice.io/?eid=ph79of6zlotm8y24mc4 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 2y ago> 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 2y agoI 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 2y agoGreat, 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 2y agoNo, 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 2y agoThis so cool! Would love to have some time to train myself with those exercises more
- a_c 2y agoNice app! I wonder if there is a piano version
- kristianp 2y agoDoes this kind of thing exist for piano?
- euroderf 2y agoOr for bass guitar ?
- naiquevin 2y agoI 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 2y agoI 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 https://alphatab.net/docs/alphatex/metadata#tuning Check the example here for piano - https://alphatab.net/docs/alphatex/notes/#multiple-voices https://alphatab.net/docs/alphatex/notes/#multiple-voices
- pc86 2y agoI think the "Why?" link on the warning not to edit library imports just goes to #
- naiquevin 2y agoThanks for reporting. I’ll check this.
- naiquevin 2y agoIf 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 https://www.captrice.io/user-guide/faqs.html. Missed updating the link. Will push a fix shortly.
- TehShrike 2y agoAny plans to add an option to render the tablature for bass guitar?
- naiquevin 2y agoLooks like it's already supported in Alphatex - https://alphatab.net/docs/alphatex/metadata#tuning 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 2y agoIs there something similar for keyboard?