Prior to finding Quest for Groove, I had been using the Melodics app for both pads and keys.
I still use it, typically beginning my practice with drills (rudiments, etc.). I’ve also created several custom configurations on my Launchpad X that applies the Q4G pad layout to at least some of the lessons there.
To be clear, I think it has shortcomings to practice done outside of the app, but I have found it useful for the primary reason that it tracks how many sequential days I have practiced. So, I start each practice session there, and once warmed-up I fire up Ableton, Chrome, and hit the Q4G icon on my bookmarks bar.
Anyway, this morning I hit the 1-year mark, and I gotta say that nothing can compare to habitual, daily practice.
Melodics every single day for a year!? Truly amazing. I tried it and couldn’t keep a streak going for more than two weeks. They have some good grooves, but I didn’t like the “melodic” material and I didn’t like having to learn a new layout every single time. It has its strengths though. It’s super motivating. Good job on your daily practice!
From my days as a guitar teacher I remember this student that suddenly got so much better since he got “Rock Smith” on the playstation.
That game basically acted as this personal coach, making him practice the way I told him to practice for years (slow down, repeat the difficult parts etc.)
Problem is, most people don’t do what you tell them or at least they have trouble doing it. So that’s where something like Melodics or Rocksmith or any game type of education comes in very very handy. It’s closer to a personal coach than a book or a video lesson for that matter.
I think it’s very nice to read that Melodics is the starting point and then you also go do the QFG lessons. I’m actually glad I’m not in direct competition with them. I think my approach will simply give folks another, also very important perspective on how to become a great musician. It’s definitely not A or B. They can complement each other.
Question to anyone who reads this:
I can easily track how many consecutive days in a row a student has logged in / visited to the website. Would that be a fun thing to add to the dashboard? I can imagine the sword cutting both ways (that might be a dutch expression)… in the sense that it’s fun when the streak is going strong and it is extra demotivating when you messed up your streak.
Just toying around with the idea since I am now in full control of all the functionality on the new site since I built it myself.
As someone who has been using Q4G for I think ~7 months, I can say that from my own experience that Melodics is definitively not a replacement for the benefits I get from the courses here.
The lessons here get me out of the melodics app, and notably into my DAW (Live). For the first time ever, I began to Record myself playing (!!!). I’m sure the value in that is obvious.
What’s been fascinating to me is that I have also become much more interested and engaged in production:
I use your backing tracks as ‘templates’ to create my own, which in turn leads to exploring how the different drum grooves match to other musical genres and styles.
I’ve been getting better and better at stripping the drums from full songs in order to play along (using iZotope’s RX 8)
To your question about tracking days logged in - the single greatest aspect of Melodics is how it ‘game-ifies’ practice. I was once an avid video gamer and I find value in the streaks and the recently introduced records feature (analogous to achievement systems in computer games). I never leave town without taking my computer and controller with me so as to never miss a day of practice, even if it’s only 5 to 10 minutes.
I think there is a lot of potential value in incorporating these aspects. I’ve been looking at using an app on my iPhone (Habitica) to hopefully apply a similar motivating effect to my practice here.
Anyway, I want to emphasize how much I love Q4G! I’m so grateful that there is someone offering the kind of training I had been looking for since 2015. I’m looking forward to everything coming in 2021!
I’ll start thinking about gamification and maybe make it optional so that people who don’t care about badges and stuff also will not be bothered by them.
HI @Robert_Mathijs, interesting idea to add the visiting / practrice data to the users dashboard. Although my visits can be a bit sporadic, it doesn’t mean that I’m not practicing (Albeit work does crap up my practice somtimes). On the old platform I could download the Pad Diagrams and Tracks, this was useful as it meant that if I need to practice something for several days I could without logging back into the site. I usually put your Tracks into Ableton as my drum kits sit their too. So I can have the Diagrams on one PC and Screen and the Drums and Tracks on another (great for practicing late at night with headphones). This may be on just the lesson that I have just started, but there doesn’t seem to be an option to download the pads on your new site build. Is that the case or just the case on intro lessons to new sections?
I’ve been doing melodics for about 3 years now. Initially on keys, then pads and this year starting on drums.
On pads I only do lessons that are primarily about drums. I don’t have any interest in cue point triggering and think there is limited value to the musical sample lessons. Wherever I can I use the QFG layout as I don’t like their inconsistent layout for positioning things like kicks and snares.
I enjoy doing it and I like the gamification.
But a few observations
it can lull you into relying on your eyes rather than your ears. There were a couple of chip tune lessons that I found the sound so irritating that I completed them with the sound turned off.
the harder lessons tend to be just faster rather than a more difficult arrangement
there’s nothing about dynamics
Like I said I like melodics and I will continue with it. For me the streak element is a good way of ensuring I at least do a little bit of practice each day.
But I feel that my real improvements this year have come from playing away from melodics with no screen and actually slowing things down massively. I also like trying to incorporate dynamics into my playing. Just mixing a few hard and soft hits together can really make your playing sound more musical.
Melodics is great, but QFG goes more in depth, so it’s actually good starting with Melodics to get mechanics of finger drumming also the gamified system forces you to practice, yeah the limit of Melodics is that they change the layouts for every song so you’re not learning a method, you’re just trying to beat a level, QFG’s system actually taught me how figure out a beat from listening, I think the next step for me is to learn to read music notation.
You can change the arrangement on Melodics. I change it to match the QFG layout. You have to do it for every song which is slightly annoying, but worth it to build consistency. It’s not the greatest thing ever, but you definitely don’t have to accept their default layouts.
Yep, I have multiple custom templates set up in the components app for my Launchpad X. This actually will map the controller pads to melodics, so many lessons do not require that I change anything in melodics itself (I really wish I could do this w/ my Push 2).
The biggest limitation in the app is you’re not able to duplicate pads (2 kicks, 2 snares, etc).
I use it for keys practice also, as a point of interest, which is also a major reason I maintain my subscription.
Really what I’m doing is manipulating melodics to fit in with my Q4G practice. I really struggled to get much out of it until I found Robert/Q4G.
