So here I am as a newbie, investigated various learning platforms and settled on Justin. After a while I delved into the app free trial and especially because of the “play along” feature I decided to shell out my hard earned pension and became a subscriber.
I am very miffed that a lot of songs, whilst may be above my current skill level are not available on the app, but appear to be available as a learning video on the website.
Whilst I am sticking to the learning modules it is really enjoyable to end my practice with a few (bad attempts at) songs but it seems that all too often I am thwarted… A few power chord punk songs just to have a blast would be fun and was very tempted by the video lesson of While my guitar gently weeps.
I just wish there was a way or a tool to build a play along version of your favourites, as it seems that whilst there appears to be a vast number of songs on the app I get quite frustrated scrolling through trying to find a song I know and love.
Anyone else suffering like this?
Was talking about it with Matthew recently
I guess that popular / famous songs license are expensive , thats why you can t find all the songs you might want to play from famous / popular artists
the app is here to help beginners to play and devellop their skills , after a while we are supposed to be able to play without it ( im not at this stage yet ) and turn our interest towards the lessons on the website
so the app offers a panel of artists with various genre to help us learn , but not necesseraly the one specific song you re looking for
if you need a backing track to play sometimes there are some nice stuff on youtube
I m using another paid app for when a song is not available on the JG app
but even with a larger library sometimes songs are not available 
I echo what @MacOneill has said. It’s kind of outside of the scope of the app to do play-alongs of more complex songs.
Perhaps the app doesn’t have many of your favourite songs but I’d encourage you to pick a few songs, maybe even at random and just get used to playing along with them because that will serve you well as you progress and become ready to tackle the songs you mention
what @MacOneill and @mattswain said–
- If you’re after tabs for a specific song, there’re lots of choices out there (most popular may be Ultimate Guitar).
- You can always play along to any song on Youtube (if you can stand the ads), or from your own library
- If you want to slow a song down, there’s software out there that’ll do that. I’m on a Mac and have used Garage Band (basic GarageBand included for free with the cost of the Mac). I just dragged the mp3 into Garage Band, and followed these instructions:
How to Slow Down Audio in GarageBand (Mac & iPhone)
The result is surprisingly good - Once you have the tabs from somewhere, there’s always a metronome to keep you rhythmically honest and to help you goose your playing speed.
I’m a beginner, and what has worked for me (to date), is to listen to the song , while I’m reading the TABs I’ve found somewhere, until I get the “feel”. Then using the metronome just reading the lyrics/tabs. That’s what I’d like to think about how I work, but it’s only partially true
Really, I’m just mostly lazy and find a song on the APP with the chord changes I want to work on and practice that. That is an Extremely low barrier to entry there (particularly using the “Jump Back In” section of the songs list). That along is worth the annual cost for me.
The end result is that my lazier side gravitates to songs included in the JustinApp (plus I love that the lyrics/tabs scroll ) and that keeps me playing songs more, and therefore learning more.
(Remember to use the options on the playback–after playing along with vocals, I find it challenging to play with no backup band nor vocals, and the click is another layer of training for me moving me to “Campfire” capability)
Have fun, and let us know what works for you!
Cheers,
Bruce