Yousician, Isician, Wescian, Musician: Learning Project Week 6

Hello! Welcome back to Week 6 of my ukulele learning project journey! As this week is my last week of learning for EDTC 300, I decided to focus on songs that might be useful in the classroom. Take a look at my update, below!

I think playing a song for a student on their birthday, particularly in those primary grades, would be an extra fun celebration! To learn these simple chords for happy birthday, I used Yousician. 

One of my goals for this week was to learn a new song I can sing along with, so that one is complete! My other goals were to learn using a music teaching app and to try some plucking. Early on in my learning journey, I found Yousician when searching for ways to learn ukulele. This week, I decided to try out the 7-day free trial to see how the app works.

The process of getting set up on Yousician was surprisingly convoluted. I started on the website, where I created an account, activated the 7-day free trial, and answered some basic questions like which of the 5 instruments I wanted to learn (the options were ukulele, guitar, bass, piano, and voice), how often I intend to practice, and my level of experience. After finishing the set up, I was brought to a page that was mainly blank, besides a prompt to download the app to begin, and a few helpful videos for getting started:

At this point, I decided to transition over to my phone to download the mobile app, as my phone currently has more storage availability than my laptop. After downloading the phone app, I signed in and re-entered my instrument, only to be told there was a new app for ukulele that I had to download. After downloading the dedicated ukulele Yousician mobile app, signing in again, choosing an instrument once more, and completing a few more set up steps like allowing access to my microphone, I was finally ready to learn!

The first thing the app prompted me to do was make sure my strings were in tune. The picture above shows how the tuning process looked. The app prompted me to play each string and then accessed my phone microphone to check where the sound fell on the spectrum at the top. My tricky string needed to be tuned once more (surprise, surprise), but the rest fell within the acceptable range (i.e., the grey spot in the middle). After ensuring each string was in tune, the app then moved to the Basics Screen. 

I started the basics levels, but they were very simple. Once I realized I could skip to the main app, I quickly did so that I could see what else was available! In the main part of the app, I could choose from three categories across the top: Songs, Learn, and Challenges.

In the Songs tab, you can look at newly added songs, songs you've recently played or marked as favourites, top songs, and even search for specific songs. When you click on individual songs, you are often presented with multiple options. For instance, in Happy Birthday, there was a chording option and a plucking option, and in Hotel California, there was a "Basic Chords" option and a "Full Chords" option. The video below demonstrates how a play-through of a song using the chording option looks. Although Yousician listened to my ukulele through the microphone, my phone screen recording app could unfortunately only record sound from my phone, and therefore this video does not have sound from my ukulele. However, this video does show I'm doing while playing along, and how the app gives feedback on note accuracy and timing.

The Learn tab has several levels that you can progress through that focus on different skills like playing chords, strumming, plucking, playing stops or slides, and agility. These build in difficulty as you progress through the levels, and they typically feature an introductory video that breaks down the skill, an opportunity to practice the skill slowly with breaks and pauses where needed, and a final run-through that will score you. The photos below shows a few of the learning missions in Level 1 and 2, and an example of the scoring screen from a "Playing Melodies" lesson, which focuses on plucking.

Although I tried out some plucking this week, I didn't really progress enough in my skills to warrant an update video. This is a learning area that I can continue to work on after this class is finished! I am finding that I do like to pick up the ukulele when I need a quick break from classwork or I'm wanting something fun to keep me occupied, so I can definitely see myself continuing on this journey in the future.

The last tab was the Challenges tab, which presented daily challenges that you can attempt while competing against other Yousician users for the top score. I tried one, then quickly realized I'd need a lot more practice to become a contender! So, these are the main aspects of Yousician that I experienced. Some of my final thoughts on trying this new digital learning strategy are below.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Pros and cons about Yousician

Pros:

- I really liked the tuning feature. I've been mainly tuning by ear, but this confirmed that my strings were in tune.

- The teaching videos are informative and easy to follow, and the practice sessions have good features that allow you to slow things down, pause, or review sections of a song.

- If you are motivated by competitiveness, the daily challenge and a leaderboard feature can help you compare your learning ability to others. If you don't like the competition, this feature is pretty easy to ignore, too. 

- I checked in the settings and it has some accessibility features. For instance, you can turn on "Colorblind mode" and choose between three types of colour blindness so that the screen can be adjusted to help you see the notes. Another option allows you to switch to left-handed mode.

Cons:

- It's fairly expensive after the 7-day trial. The package I signed up for is $149.99 for the year. That does include access to all 5 instruments, so if I were seriously committed to learning or if I wanted to learn several instruments it may be a good investment. As it stands, I'm a university student who intends to cancel my membership tomorrow, before the end of the free trial period! 

- Sometimes the accuracy is a little off. I think you have to be quite close to the phone for the mic to pick it up properly, and I also noticed that the app sometimes accepted chords that I played wrong (G7 for G, for example).

- The set up process is a bit excessive! 

- The mobile app is tricky to navigate. There are many options, which is helpful in some ways, but can be a bit overwhelming in others. I spent a couple days figuring out the app, but I feel like I barely scratched the surface. As a result, I didn't find it to be particularly user friendly. 

Ultimately, I think it was a valuable learning experience to try out this music app for my ukulele journey. I would recommend this app to beginners who are committed to investing in their learning journey and spending time working on it, but I probably wouldn't use it myself in the future. I think I've learned that I'm pretty solidly a YouTube learner! 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thanks for keeping up with my ukulele learning journey! Keep an eye out in the next few days for my final blog post with an overview of my entire learning journey. And let me know in the comments if you've ever tried a music app when learning a new instrument!

*COMMENT TIP*: When you're typing a comment, look just above your comment to where it says "Comment as". If "Anonymous" is selected, you can click the word "Anonymous" and change it to your Google Account or your name and website URL. If you have issues signing into Google or entering your name and URL for some reason and have to comment as Anonymous, please sign your name at the bottom of your comment - I'd love to know who is commenting! Thanks! :)