Yousician Review: A Popular App for Learning Piano (and More!)


Yousician Review

In this Yousician review, you’ll learn what Yousician is, how it works, what equipment you will need to use the course, how much it costs, its pros and cons, alternatives, and much more.

Let’s get into it!

Table of Contents

What Is Yousician?

Yousician is a cool Finnish music app where you can learn to play various musical instruments such as the guitar, bass, piano, and ukulele. Also, you can use this interactive music service to learn how to sing. This application is known to be the world’s largest virtual music teacher and can be found on iOS, Android, Windows, and macOS platforms.

Yousician Review

A little sneak peek into the history of Yousician shows that the app was invented by Chris Thur and Mikko Kalpainen in 2010. The music educator app was originally known as “Ovelin” and was part of a program at Aalto University.

How Does Yousician Work?

Yousician is an app that helps you master four different types of musical instruments. You can download the app on your android, iOS device, or tablet from Google Play or the Apple App Store.

 

Once you have downloaded the app, you will be asked which instrument you want to play, how well you play the instrument, and it will show a 3-part video on how to use the app. Once you have crossed these stages, you can learn to play the musical instrument of your choice.

 

Yousician follows a methodical format to teach how to play an instrument. For instance, if you choose to play the guitar, you will learn the lesson into three parts – lead, knowledge, and rhythm. First, you will learn the important techniques to play the lead guitar, then you will be introduced to guitar knowledge – notes, keys, musical alphabets, ear training, etc., and in the last part, you will acquire the necessary skills to play the rhythm guitar.

 

Yousician aims to teach musical instrument lessons using a gamification format. The app picks up the sound you make while playing the instrument and provides honest feedback – whether you hit or miss the right note, or if you played in-time or on-pitch. You collect points with each lesson and pass the level.

How Quickly Can I Learn to Play the Piano with Yousician?

Learning from the Yousician app is easy and fun.  It provides an engaging way to start your piano lessons. This makes it quicker for users to acquire the necessary piano-playing skills and techniques.

 

Generally, it may take you from a couple of days to get hold of the basics to a few weeks or months to finally achieve the piano mastery.  

What Do I Need (Equipment, etc.) to Use the Yousician Course?

You may think you will need a lot of equipment to learn to play a musical instrument from Yousician. But that’s far from reality. You will only require two products. First, you will need an electronic device so that you can download the app. This device can be your mobile phone, computer, or tablet. Besides that, you will need the musical instrument that you want to learn to play – guitar, piano, etc.

 

And that’s it!

 

You won’t need any additional cords or cables. The unique technology of Yousician allows your device’s microphone to listen to you play. In case your device doesn’t have a good-quality internal microphone, you can use an external one.

What’s Included With Yousician?

Yousician Review

Yousician comes with over 1500 songs, exercises, and teacher-based lessons for those learning to play guitar, piano, bass, ukulele, and singing. It features visually appealing videos, challenges, and games that help you with playing your musical instrument in a fun and engaging manner.

 

When starting with an instrument, Yousician will need to ensure your instrument is in tune. If it isn’t, Yousician’s built-in tuner will help you correct the tuning of your musical device. Yousician also provides a step-by-step guide to reading tablature, or tab and playing fun songs – from original songs to custom-written ones.  This will cover everything you need to know from building speed, using different fingers, playing the right notes, scales, and chords, and learning basic and advanced techniques.

 

Yousician also comes with a practice mode, which will allow you to slow down songs as much as you like, repeat small chunks of the songs, build speed slowly, etc. Once you have mastered the art of playing the instrument, you can nail it at full speed like a pro.

What Is the Yousician Curriculum?

Yousician has different curriculums for different musical instruments. Let’s look at each instrument’s curriculum separately.

The Guitar Curriculum

Missions

You advance through the syllabus by completing missions – Hammer & Pull, Keys & Grooves, Broken Chords, Legato Lead, Ear Training: Major & Minor, and Strumming Challenge. What are the missions? They are various groups of songs, exercises, and video tutorials that help you achieve the skills and techniques taught in each mission.

Paths

The missions are divided into three paths. These include:

  • The lead path – you learn to play solos and melodies. It teaches picking, legatos, speeds, and much more.
  • The knowledge path – you learn about the fretboard, keys and grooves, and musical alphabets. You will also learn to develop ear training technique.
  • The Rhythm path – you learn to play accompaniment such as riffs, chords, strumming, etc.

Levels

The missions are also divided into three difficulty stages as follows:

  • Level 0 is for complete beginners
  • By level 5, you will learn basic skills such as picking up common songs with riffs, chords, and melodies.
  • By level 10, you will be a pro at playing most songs with fingerpicking, barre chords, and solos.

​Skill Tests

At the end of each level, you will come across a “try to unlock level.” This is a skill test that will help you assess your guitar playing ability that you have acquired thus far.

The Bass Curriculum

The Yousician bass curriculum follows the same outline as the guitar’s curriculum. It is also grouped into different missions.

Paths

These missions are grouped into the following paths:

  • The Playing Path – you learn popular songs and techniques. It covers plucking, riffling, and fretting
  • The Knowledge Path – you learn how music works, and you learn hearing abilities.

Levels

The missions are also divided into three difficulty stages as follows:

  • Level 0 is for inexperienced beginners
  • By level 5 you develop a solid base to play most songs
  • By level 9, you can play a wide variety of songs in different styles, speeds, and techniques.

Skill Tests

At the end of each level, you will come across a “try to unlock level.” This is a skill test that will help you assess your bass playing ability that you have acquired thus far.

​The Piano Curriculum

The missions of the piano curriculum are grouped as follows:

Paths

  • The Classical Path –  teaches how you can play solo piano music
  • The Pop Path – teaches songs you can play with a band
  • The Knowledge Path – teaches you how to read sheet music and create your own songs

Levels

  • Level 0 is for complete beginners
  • By level 5 you learn to play a variety of songs with chords and melodies

Skill Tests

At the end of each level, you will come across a “try to unlock level.” This is a skill test that will help you assess your piano playing ability that you have acquired thus far.

The Ukelele Curriculum

The Ukulele missions are grouped as follows:

Paths

  • The Lead Path – you learn to play simple melodies and learn double stops and fingerpicking
  • The Rhythm Path – you learn chord shapes and strumming patterns

Levels

  • Level 0 is for perfect beginners
  • By level 5 you learn to play a variety of songs  with chords and melodies

Skill Tests

At the end of each level, you will come across a “try to unlock level”. This is a skill test that will help you assess your ukulele playing ability that you have acquired thus far.

The Singing Curriculum

The Yousician singing curriculum consists of a variety of games such as:

Note Catcher

In this game, you have to rack up gems that are coming at you from different directions. You will have to move the paddle up and down to collect those gems by singing the right notes.

Chase Notes

In this game, you will get to learn short sections of melody lines that will appear at the end of each level. You will have to sing after the notes you hear.

How Much Does Yousician Cost?

Yousician comes with a monthly and yearly plan. In the monthly plan, Premium is for $19.99 per month, while Premium+ costs $29.99 per month.

 

However, in the case of the yearly plan, you can save up to 50%. Premium costs $ 9.99 per month, and Premium+ is up to $14.99 per month.

What Can You Do for Free with Yousician?

With the free trial, you can play any instrument as many times as you want. However, the app will only give you one feedback for 20 minutes daily.

​How Long Is the Yousician Trial?

Yousician offers a 7-day free trial to its users.

​What Do You Get for Yousician Premium?

Yousician users get access to one instrument and unlimited lesson times when using Premium. However, they can unlock all songs, all instruments, and unlimited lesson time in Premium+.

​What are the Pros and Cons of Yousician?

Pros

  • Features a game-based interface which is fun and interactive for various age groups
  • Can be used on nearly all devices – PC, Mac, Android, iOS
  • Provides scoring and real-time feedback for every note you play
  • Lets you upload songs and practice them forever
  • Consists of different levels that allow you to explore various skills and techniques crucial to playing musical instruments
  • The song library is vast with lots of songs and genres to choose from

Cons

  • Some of the courses and videos may across as slightly repetitive at times
  • Some of the courses feature voice-overs than a human voice, making them less effective.
  • Not ideal for expert players

​Who Is Yousician Best for?

 Yousician is best for beginners (belonging to any age) that may lack experience of playing musical instruments. It is best for those that like to learn things on their own as its courses are driven less by spoon-feeding.

​Is Yousician Worth It?

Yousician is a well-balanced piano method, ideal for kids and adults alike. It has a game format with skill-based levels that help you learn with regular lessons. With an affordable price range and tons of games, exercises, lessons, and songs to play, Yousician is worth the investment.

​Yousician Alternatives

Yousician VS Flowkey

The major difference between Yousician and Flowkey is the number of instruments they allow you to play. With Yousician, you can learn to play the piano, guitar, ukulele, bass, and singing. However, Flowkey only allows you to play the piano. Also, Yousician has a game-like setup while Flowkey is sleek and simple. It is created just to help you play a variety of songs on the piano.

 

You can’t access all the materials on Yousician right away. You can unlock each course level by level. However, Flowkey lets you access different songs and courses at any point in time.

Yousician VS Simply Piano

Yousician and Simply Piano are equally functional for beginners. When using these music apps, you get to access a library of great songs, exercises, and lessons. Both these apps have different levels – beginners, intermediate, and advanced. So, you learn to play songs level by level.

Unfortunately, Simply Piano is only available on iOS and android. Unlike Yousician, it is not compatible with computers. Simply Piano also lets you connect the keyboard via USB MIDI. This feature is missing in Yousician as the app recognizes the sound of the piano via a built-in microphone.

Yousician Review by Charles Cleyn

Wrapping Up

We hope you found our Yousician review insightful as we discussed everything from what Yousician is, to what it features, to its advantages and disadvantages, and its most popular alternatives!

 

To check out the Yousician piano program, please click here.

Maurice

I am intrigued by how music affects the brain. I created this site to share my fascination with music in general and piano keyboards in particular.

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