On the Music Path is a brand new iPad app that just hit the App Store today. It offers lessons on guitar and other instruments from a cast of well-known musicians including Jackson Browne, Scott Tennant, and Ravi Shankar.
The app itself is free, while the lessons cost between $2.99 – 19.99. Lesson previews and sample chapters can be downloaded for free to help decide if you want to purchase them.
My daughter got a guitar recently and is keen to learn it, so I downloaded On the Music Path this morning and spent some time with it. I have to say it looks superb so far and I’m excited to show it to my daughter.
One thing I like a lot about the app right away is its loud and clear ‘Old School’ approach – as put forward in its App Store description:
REAL INSTRUMENTS. REAL MUSICIANS. REAL MUSIC.
In an age when more people are learning to play virtual pianos and plastic guitars than the real thing, our goal is unabashedly “old school”: We want to help you learn to play a real instrument from a real master.
There are no flashing lights to follow, no polyphonic note detection algorithms, no game leaderboards and no jam tracks laid down by a machine. All the technology in our app is there to make the experience of learning to play an instrument more productive and enjoyable than ever before.
The videos in the app look great and feel like some serious time and money was spent in their production.
The app’s UI is very polished, getting around it is easy, and its full of good features.
I bought one of the beginner level lessons, just to get a better feel for how promising (or not) these might be for my daughter. I was very impressed with it.
I’m no musician (far, far from it) but the way the lessons are presented seems smart and effective. It’s easy to pause and resume lessons with a single tap anywhere on the screen. There’s a notation view (for musical notations), a tab view (for guitar tablature), a tuner popover to digitally tune your guitar, and a practice mode.
Here’s a bit of the App Store description for the app:
On the Music Path” offers beautifully filmed, in-depth lessons on how to play the guitar, piano, drums and bass from a star-studded cast of world-renowned musicians including: Jackson Browne, Richard Thompson, Lee Ritenour, Marcia Ball, Steve Ferrone, Leland Sklar, Vonda Shepard, Luis Conte, Michael Chapdelaine, Roscoe Beck, Kenny Sultan, Scott Tennant, Steve Postell and the legendary, Ravi Shankar.
Shot in high-definition video by award-winning cinematographer, Alan Kozlowski, each lesson costs between $2.99 and $19.99 and includes 45-85 minutes of one-on-one lesson time with a master musician accompanied by musical notation, chord charts, lyrics and guitar tablature synchronized to the teacher’s playing. There are no subscriptions charges or upfront fees. And you can download the app and try out the first few chapters of any lesson for free.
I think this looks like an excellent app for aspiring musicians or those who want to improve their skills – and I hope it’s an app that my daughter may get some great use out of.
Here’s an App Store link for On the Music Path; it’s a free app, with lessons available via In-App purchase.
© patrickj for iPad Insight, 2011. |
Permalink |
One comment |
Add to
del.icio.us
Post tags: iPad Apps, iPad music apps
