Hi, in the App, I cannot find the C major backing track for improvisation in Module 10. I just get a blank screen and no sound. Am I missing something?
Thanks,
John
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tagging @MusopiaApps to follow along
This way they’ll get a notification to check this issue.
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Hi, the C major scale backing track with a whole separate player in the exercise session is a work in progress. We don’t have a fixed timetable when it will be ready, but stay tuned!
@LievenDV Could you advise where to find and download the backing track on the website page if available?
- Musopia Support Team
Grade 2 Module 10 is where Justin starts introducing major scale improvisation and the backing track is available under the Resources button.
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I was so excited to see improvising as one of the practices on my app.
Then so so so disappointed to find out is was just a timer and no backing track.
That does not even make sense.
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There is one, just not in the app. The app doesn’t have a good way of storing files. In the video Justin describes the backing track is located on the website. Go to the website find the courses go to Grade 2 module 10 click on resources and there is the download for CMajor 2 min backing track. Download it and your good to go. It’s a great track to improvise to. Enjoy!…Rod
To further the help @Rod58 has provided …
Go here and click on Resources under the video pane:
There is the C major backing track for improvisation.
Cheers
| Richard_close2u | JustinGuitar Official Guide
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I think you miss the point. There are all kinds of backing tracks on you tube for C Major. That is not the point. The point is when I am practicing and using my ipad connected to my amp with the app. The idea that I must leave the app that has my timer for the exercise to open another app play the exercise then return to the app is very annoying. If it was a free app it would be one thing but this is not only a paid app it has a subscription.
If this is going to be a Subscription based app to learn guitar with the Justin Guitar method then it should be just that. Someone needs to decide if this is the learning app or not.
Don’t get me wrong I am loving my lessons. I am loving the teacher. For the most part I love the app for learning. But I still think someone needs to step up and decide is this going to be THE app for learning or not.
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I think Terry is correct in his disappointment. Justin mentions in many videos that
there are backing tracks on the app. Backing tracks and play-a-long songs are not
the same thing.
I don’t have the app so can’t comment if there is or isn’t Backing Track maybe someone
from @MusopiaApps could chime in and clear this up.
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This topic has been discussed previously and response provided by Musopia.
@DavidP @Richard_close2u maybe worth combining these two threads?
Thanks @Socio - good catch, topics now merged.
@TerrySr see post 3 above: Can't find C major backing track (module 10) - #3 by MusopiaApps
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So this discussion has move here instead. Ok maybe someone can explain why the website that is free has the backing track and the app that I am paying an annual fee for does not. This seems backwards to me. I am being charged to have less functionality. I think this is the crux of what is bothering me at this point.
Maybe the app should be free until they have finished making it work?
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Hi Terry,
I can understand your frustrations with the application. Yes, most of the content is free on the website. Though, as I understand it keeping as much of the content free relies on purchases and donations from those that can afford to provide financial support. I believe that it runs on an honour based system to help those who can’t afford the cost of lessons. As for the application, it is a fantastic tool for beginners. The karaoke style play along makes it a fantastic accompaniment to the beginners course. Yes, the application has its issues, but so do a lot of applications. It’s great that you raise these issues, such as the missing backing track as the more feedback us users give the developer, the better the application can become over time. Don’t let that missing backing track bother you too much, enjoy your guitar learning journey.
I wholeheartedly agree with your assessment. However I am paying full price for half (or less) of a product. Does it that say something about the ones providing the app? Are they clever getting me to pay for it? Or does it say more about me continuing to pay full price?
Ultimately that is the question I must ask myself.
Terry, you are clearly disgruntled. I will try to offer some explanation, background and possible options for you.
I am unsure if you know of the overview history of the JustinGuitar website and the app.
Justin started his website when the teaching videos he was releasing became popular. He built it himself, from scratch, from nothing and from a basis of never having built a website. It grew and grew and grew.
People clearly benefit from his teaching, like his style and buy into his ethos of providing guitar tuition for free and his pay-it-forward philosophy. His website was built entirely on funds received from donations and then on the sale of products. Products in the early days were physical learning and song books, DVDs, electronic resources, backing track downloads etc.
About four years ago Justin invested a massive amount of money employing a professional team to develop the new website. He also invested a massive amount of personal time to write the new beginners course and to test it himself by using it to learn to play left-handed (Nitsuj).
This is a crucial concept - Justin always had it in mind that the website was the central hub for his lessons and his content. It hosts everything that he has provided in the form of learning courses, song lessons, resources etc.
Always looking to incorporate new ideas and enhance the learning of his students, over the last ten years or so, Justin released some early, simple apps -Time Trainer, Note Trainer etc. About six years ago came the first release of the Beginner Song Course app. That was initially developed by FourChords then Musopia took over the app development work. Updates and new versions came along.
Then, a couple of years ago, came the massive overhaul of the app - a major redesign. Not so much an update, more an entire rebuild. The app now contains all that you see - dozens and dozens of beginner lessons, over 1000 play-along songs etc.
The content is massive.
For some people - and I wonder if this applies to you - the app is their first experience of JustinGuitar. Many people have come to the community unaware that there exists a JustinGuitar website that is even more enormous and comprehensive than the app with all it contains and more, much more. And it is 99% free. There are a handful of subscription courses. All else is entirely free.
The website was and is meant to be the centre of the JustinGuitar teaching and learning experience. The apps and books and DVDs and more were meant to be additional, supplementary, optional resources.
Now that the beginner and songs app has become so vast and offers so much, some people undoubtedly do use it, and it alone, for their learning with Justin’s lessons. The app does indeed offer things that the website does not. The main one of course being the 1000+ play-along songs. Plus some interactive features not available on the website.
Yes, it costs a subscription. You do get a lot for the money. And it continues to grow and improve. Justin continues to invest in its development updating according to his vision and to customer feedback and demand. You have already seen from the Musopia comment above that your specific request - to have the C major backing track hosted on the app - is being addressed, is on their to-do list.
I will close with these comments.
Until the backing track is included with an update, I would have thought it would be a very simple task of having both the app and the website open on your device, connected to your amp. And when you want to play the backing track, switch from app to browser to play it from the website? I ask genuinely - is that a problem?
If that is unsatisfactory, then might I suggest you contact Danna at Musopia - justin.feedback@musopia.net - with your ID (the email address you used in the app store) and your latest receipt. Depending on circumstance, it might be possible to assist you with a refund and / or a cancellation.
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I am new to this only three months in and it took a little while to understand the relationship between the website and the app but I got there. I am pleased that Richard’s potted history is what I understood.
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OK I really appreciate you have taken the time to address this issue.
Let me make a few things clear. I absolutely love the way Justin teaches. I also believe Justin deserves to be financially rewarded for his hard work. I also believe he can run things with HIS business however he sees fit. I also like the app as a whole.
That being said, I watched youtube videos for months before I got a guitar for Christmas. I knew Justin was the one I wanted to teach me. When I got the guitar I started with the website. I was encouraged in the video to try the app. So I stopped using the website and got the app. I was in heaven. It made practice structured and controlled all the timers so I could just concentrate on practicing. I desperately needed that as I have tried other instruments in the past and failed because of that lack of structure. STRUCTURE was very important. Later I discovered that to advance with the app I had to pay. So I bit the bullet and subscribed for a full year. I loved it so much I stopped borrowing my sons amp and got one of my own. I got a Fender Mustang GTX100. I really liked it because I could play the app through the amp and it sounded like I was playing with the band. Great everything is going great! Then I get to the lesson where I get to improvise. After watching all the lessons by Justin I start the exercises. So excited to get to finally improvise I get to the practice for improvising click the link and… wait where is the backing track??? I was so frustrated I had to stop my lesson search youtube for a C Major backing track. Then leave the app which is my timer. I improvised and it was so much fun. But then had to get back into the app to continue.
Fast forward to the next day. I started thinking. How many people are coming across the same thing. I started thinking hang on I am paying for this. I decide to come here and share my thoughts hoping it could be fixed so others would benefit from the fix. I am told to use the website. That got me even more frustrated because I had paid for what I thought was supposed to be the better way to take the lessons. I felt like I was paying to be the app designers beta tester. Then you tell me Justin paid a lot of money to the designers to do the app. So now I am thinking I paid to be a beta tester and so has Justin. I work in I.T. I understand that apps can have bugs. I understand that designers can add new features after deployment. But when the app that you pay for starts out less than the website (for instruction and practice, not talking about songs) then I feel it is a beta version.
I really appreciate that Justin has a community forum here that allows me to vent this frustration. I am NOT asking for a refund. Don’t want one. I just want the app to be as awesome as Justin is. Right now it is OK. It is not representative of how awesome he is.
Thanks for the full reply Terry.
Can I stress from the outset you categorically are not paying to beta test the app.
I won’t go into full detail of the experience when this version 2 of the app went out to beta testing. Suffice it to say that Justin and the development team had to completely shelve their plans for release and release dates and invest many more months getting it right. Many current app users were beta testers and can attest to that better than I can - I wasn’t a tester. The app, in its current form is a fully functioning product. It’s main purpose that separates it and makes it a different entity to the website is the play-along song feature. Its (large) secondary purpose is the beginner lessons for sure.
Okay - not having gone through to use that feature (I confess, I’m not an app user), I did not realise that there was a button to press that suggested it would open up the backing track. I can see that such a false link is a cause of frustration. I’m not an app developer either - maybe that button was pre-built in anticipation of the feature being added in a pending update.
But again, I genuinely ask, is it a problem to switch from app to browser back to app when going through a practice routine?
And I add this question - do you really think it fair to claim that this one missing element - a 2-minute backing track whose absence causes a bit of frustration - makes you believe that you are acting as an unpaid beta tester?
Cheers 
| Richard_close2u | JustinGuitar Official Guide & Approved Teacher
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Totally understand Terry’s frustration. It’s like a supermarket advertising steak on sale and they don’t have any but they put out advertisements everywhere everyday. You go to the store and they don’t apologize, they don’t give you a rain check, they don’t tell you when the steak will be in stock, they just tell you to drive to the next city and buy it there and the store mgr tells you he’s never tasted steak so he doesn’t know about it and genuinely asks “is driving to the next town that much of a problem”? The musopia “we have no timetable” post is at least 2 months old. Many times on this forum I see people state a valid complaint on this forum it is poo pooed away saying in effect “be glad with what you have”. Everyone agrees Justin is a great teacher but that doesn’t mean mistakes shouldn’t be fixed or at least addressed. And if you’ve never opened the app, you have no business commenting. Rant over.