Thanks for sharing Trevor! I also use Yousician with JustinGuitar and have from the start. Iām on the last song of level 7 now and make it my goal to gold star only the level 2 levels below the one Iām currently working on. For example, now Iām working on gold starring level 6 as I just finished gold starring level 5. I also donāt focus too much on the ācourseā songs, I usually do a little bit of work on either 3 silver starring the next course song (I donāt move to the next one until I have 3 silver stars) or gold starring another section of the level 2 below mine. My progression slowed quite a bit around level 6 on the course work because things do pick up quite a bit in difficulty there, but stick with it and work on some form of daily progress and youāll be surprised how far you can take it.
A good tip for you (if you werenāt aware yet), when you select a song, you can actually just select a single section to work on gold starring, rather than trying to execute the entire song perfectly. Some of the strumming songs are incredibly difficult to gold star, like around level 5, because it seems like it doesnāt have absolutely perfect recognition of every up strum sometimes. I would have never been able to gold star it without doing one section at a time. All you have to do is click the part itself when you get to this screen. I was kicking myself for not recognizing that earlier.
I spend a majority of my time on Yousician playing songs that are roughly around my grade level and Iāve learned how to play quite a few songs that way. If youāre using it to learn how to play songs without having to have an app open by memorizing the songs, Iād highly recommend that as soon as the song is over, or maybe pausing during the middle of a song, practicing key parts of the chord progression or riffs directly from memory to try and commit them to your mental storage. After I finish a new song Iāll play what I can from memory (if I want to remember it) and then whatever I donāt remember, Iāll play through again and once I run into the part I didnāt remember, play it a few times with it paused, play through it unpaused, then try to play it all from memory after the song. Rinse and repeat enough times and youāre sure to remember.
I also find myself working a bit ahead of where Iām at to try and develop my skills faster. I never originally had any intentions of getting into lead guitar playing, but when starting to learn blues licks I was having so much fun so it gave me an idea. I was able to play Fade to Black by Metallica rather well, everything other than the solo. So I figured, what the heck, Iāll try to learn the solo. I was originally working off of Youtube tutorial videos, constantly breaking down each section and trying to memorize and learn it, but itās a bit hard to keep in time and understand if Iām doing certain things like bends properly. I then realized that Yousician actually has these solos in the hardest versions of their songs. Fade to Black, the full rythym and lead version, is a level 12 song in Yousician which is well above my level. But I can slow the solo section down to 30% in practice mode and get really good experience playing it in time, and itās able to tell you if youāre bending accurately or not with a live chart of your bend.
Iām also working on the Hotel California solos, and luckily found that they have that too. Still again, a bit beyond my current level of playing, but being able to see in live scrolling view all of the notes while also showing me if Iām bending appropriately has been extremely helpful. I work on getting my notes accurate at a slow speed, and when I have a relatively high percentage of notes played correctly (basically everything but maybe 5% of the bends), Iāll bump the speed up by 5% and start over. Itās been a fantastic experience.
Combined with JustinGuitarās educational videos, my autodidactic learning experience has been extremely effective. JustinGuitar is the bread and butter of the learning experience for me with regards to educational techniques, and Yousician is the gravy on top. Yousician definitely lacks in the educational context and kind of lets you figure things out on your own, which Iāve found isnāt always the best route for certain things youād never think to think about purely based on their very brief videos and songs.