AAARRGGHH!! Why do I keep buying iPhone instrument apps?!?!
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me three times and I guess I have to admit I am a tool.
I don’t know why, but for some reason I keep getting sucked in by these musical instrument apps for the iPhone. It started innocently enough, with the free MiniPiano app. However, about 2 minutes after launching it, I soon remembered why I dropped out of piano lesson classes as a kid (I still remember crying at my first piano recital, unable to get through “The Bear Went Over The Mountain“, and my 80-year old piano teacher coming to my embarrassing rescue to help play me out. If I ever want to feel the sensation off douche chills, I focus on that memory (oh, and I was 25 at the time – just kidding)). Sure, on MiniPiano I could figure out the beginning of Mary Had a Little Lamb, but I soon realized that was as far as I was going to get.
Above: Pocket Guitar, MiniPiano, and Ocarina
Still, that didn’t stop me from optimistically laying down the big 99¢ for PocketGuitar, a guitar simulator app. I don’t know what I was thinking. At least I had taken 4 months of piano as a kid – I had never even touched a guitar outside of picking up my friend’s “axe” (as the cool kids call them), strumming a few off-key strings, and promptly putting it down. I quickly found that Pocket Guitar’s developers did such an accurate job recreating the guitar experience on the iPhone that I sounded just as horrible on it as on a real guitar.
Now, here comes Ocarina, the media darling. Nearly 1000 reviews on the iTunes store, and a 4 star average. I was quite the Zelda player on the original NES, so I figured, hey, 1000 people can’t be wrong! Here’s my chance!
My chance for what, I am not sure. I now realize that even if I had been able to make any semblance of a song on the thing, I would still essentially be playing a flute, something I made every effort to avoid while growing up, and certainly nothing I ever wanted to do before it appeared on the iPhone.
So that’s it. I am breaking up the iBand. I have sworn off all musical instrument apps for the iPhone. I don’t care how highly you guys rate these apps or how many YouTube videos pop up of hippies jamming on the virtual Ocarina or rocking out on their iGuitars, I now know that it is more or less impossible for me to produce a decent sound on a virtual instrument. Well, with one exception…
Above: The only iPhone instrument I have truly mastered
We ALL wanna be rock stars man, it’s only natural.
🙂
Ahh Cowbell… the only app really worth having
Glad to hear there is a percussionist out there who can keep good tempo! 😉
I made the mistake of buying Ocarina based on all of those great reviews. It was a waste; there’s really no way to make anything that sounds like music with it, unless you want to spend hours mastering it.
Can you make the cowbell into your ringtone?
check this out, this guy is mastering the guitar.
somebody seemed to have a lot of time.
http://de.sevenload.com/videos/trkHrVi-Metallica-on-iPhone
hope metallica is not sueing him…
Clearly you have a fever. And the only prescription…?
This article makes me come to terms with my own binge of music apps. I even got the wrong one, got a refund from the App Store people using my free “get-out-of-jail” card, and then got the Plus version of that app.
But here’s a tip for the tone-challenged of us: get a good flute app, and just play on the black keys. Reminds me of gentle eastern music, somewhat like the pre-fight kung-fu scenes. Don’t ask me which one is a good flute app (not Ocarina!), I’m still looking…!!!
Here, here! Cowbell was my first love in the App Store. I have played around with other apps but find that Cowbell is my one true love and the only app which many months later still puts a smile on my face.
You’re funny. You know the real reason why we buy these apps is to show off our iPhones to friends to see a smile on their face, whilst at the same time it fulfils our self gratification, which makes up for the amount of dropped calls we get, thereby masking our struggle of love hate relationship of an apple product.
there, I said it.
I made all the same mistakes and you truly speak my mind
thank you!
and for all developers out there:
make a musik programm that uses our musik from itunes to make something new!
Hehe,
Actually I found the app that is just called Guitar (by Frontier Design Group) does actually allow a non-guitarist to play some very nice pieces. You assign the chords used in a particular song to buttons at one end and then strum and finger-pick the strings with one hand while pressing the buttons for the various chords with the other.
My wife and I have actually played duets despite me not knowing how to play guitar! 🙂
-Mart
So, good Doctor, in a Dec. 2nd 2008 piece you wrote “I now know that it is more or less impossible for me to produce a decent sound on a virtual instrument.”
“What a load!” I shout. I hereby place before you “The iShred Challenge!”
iShred (just released on the iTunes App Store) is related to our “Guitar” app (the most playable app for some real tunes, I our not-so-humble opinion) BUT ITS ON STEROIDS! Monster metal mayhem from tiny speakers. Trippy psychodelic sounds from mere earbuds. Stompbox effect and an overdriven amp in one hand!
So here’s the challenge: download a free copy of iShred (by redeeming this iTunes code: MFMTFJTH3RXE) and see if you aren’t rockin’ to “Smoke On The Water” within 5 minutes.
If you fail this challenge, then the only code left for you is this: FE6WMLT7MTMY
Enjoy!
Charlie Hitchcock
charlie@frontierdesign.com
“We ALL wanna be rock stars man, it’s only natural.”
Yeah, we all wannabe this link (you fucktard)
http://encyclopediadramatica.com/Elitist_musical_bastards