from Hacker News

A deliberate practice app for guitar players who want to level up

by adityaathalye on 3/29/25, 3:27 AM with 136 comments

  • by naiquevin on 4/1/25, 1:52 AM

    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.

  • by webprofusion on 4/1/25, 3:38 AM

    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

  • by hexie on 4/1/25, 2:23 AM

    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!

  • by i_am_a_squirrel on 4/1/25, 12:40 AM

    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.

  • by 6stringmerc on 4/1/25, 1:37 AM

    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!

  • by uglycoyote on 4/1/25, 5:42 AM

    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.

  • by a_c on 4/1/25, 9:27 AM

    Nice app! I wonder if there is a piano version
  • by jppope on 4/1/25, 1:22 AM

    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.
  • by chamomeal on 4/1/25, 1:35 AM

    Aw man this is great timing. I’m just getting back into guitar for the millionth time. I’ll definitely try this out tonight
  • by user3939382 on 4/1/25, 4:14 AM

    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?
  • by pc86 on 4/1/25, 12:36 PM

    I think the "Why?" link on the warning not to edit library imports just goes to #
  • by MrksHfmn on 4/1/25, 7:07 AM

    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.
  • by NullHypothesist on 4/1/25, 12:27 AM

    This looks super cool. I love projects like this. Going to give it a try!
  • by osigurdson on 4/1/25, 5:47 AM

    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

  • by Ambix on 4/1/25, 8:14 AM

    This so cool! Would love to have some time to train myself with those exercises more
  • by TehShrike on 4/1/25, 1:57 PM

    Any plans to add an option to render the tablature for bass guitar?
  • by LoFiSamurai on 4/1/25, 12:38 AM

    Love it! Def going to use this.
  • by 6Az4Mj4D on 4/1/25, 2:46 AM

    What is the best way to learn Guitar as a total noob? Can this app help
  • by raincole on 4/1/25, 6:28 PM

    Is there something similar for keyboard?
  • by kristianp on 4/1/25, 10:30 AM

    Does this kind of thing exist for piano?
  • by JamesCoyne on 4/1/25, 12:30 AM

    Anyone have recommendations for similar Android apps?
  • by lewisleclerc on 4/1/25, 2:20 AM

    Is it just me or the reviews here look like fake reviews on Amazon?
  • by pivic on 4/1/25, 2:58 AM

    I'd remove 'deliberate' from all copy as it reduces faith in the product; it's worse than 'opinionated'…