Practice apps teach your fingers. This teaches your ears.
Yousician listens to you play guitar or piano and scores every note. Melodics does the same for pads, keys and drums. Both are good at what they do, and what they do is practice. If your question is "how do I make a beat, and why does it work", you want an instrument, and this one is free to start.
Last checked . Facts about Yousician and Melodics come from the pages listed at the end.
Yousician and Melodics are the two best known apps for learning to play. Yousician covers guitar, bass, piano, ukulele and singing: it hears you through the microphone, shows you what to play, and grades you. Melodics does it for pad controllers, MIDI keyboards and electronic drums, with more than a thousand lessons built around real music. Both are subscriptions with a free trial, and both work.
What they are not is a place to write music. There is no song of yours in either app. You play along with theirs, get better, and when you finally want to make something, you are back at a blank DAW with all the questions the apps never covered: which notes go together, what a bassline does, why a chorus lifts.
This instrument starts at those questions. Every project begins with a loop that already sounds good. Notes stay in key, so you cannot play a wrong one. Every musical word explains itself when you point at it. The lessons are loops you take apart. And the co-producer, when you ask it to change something, tells you why the change works. It is not a practice app; it is the thing you practise for.
Yousician Oy
Yousician
Learn guitar, bass, piano, ukulele or singing on a phone, tablet or computer. It listens through the microphone, shows what to play, and scores your accuracy and timing, with a large song library on the top plan.
Price
Subscription after a free trial. Published prices vary by region and promotion; when we checked, third-party listings put Premium at roughly $15 to $20 a month and Premium+ at about $30 a month, with yearly plans far cheaper.
Status
Active. We could not read the price list from Yousician's own pages, so treat the numbers as approximate.
Learn pads, keys and drums by playing along on a MIDI controller or electronic kit, with more than a thousand lessons built on real songs and a seven-day free trial. Runs on Mac, Windows and iPad.
Price
Subscription after a seven-day trial, with Standard and Premium plans. Listings put it between about $10 and $30 a month depending on plan and promotion; yearly billing is much cheaper.
Status
Active. Its plans page shows prices only after loading, so check it before you buy.
Free to start, and the free plan is the whole instrument. Paid plans add more co-producer time and storage (see pricing).
Status
Live, in any modern browser on a laptop or desktop.
What it is
An instrument with a co-producer: it edits your project with the same operations you use, explains each change, and every turn can be undone in one step.
Side by side
Short answers on purpose. The difference is usually in the how, so each row says what happens rather than ticking a box.
Capability
Yousician and Melodics
Riffgarden
What you learn
To play an instrument: guitar, piano, bass, ukulele or singing in Yousician; pads, keys and drums in Melodics.
To make music: rhythm, keys and scales, chords, basslines, sound and arrangement, by changing a loop and hearing what happens.
What you need
A real instrument or a MIDI controller, and a microphone for Yousician.
A browser on a laptop or desktop. There is nothing else to buy.
Runs in a browser
Yousician has a web version alongside its apps; Melodics is a desktop and iPad app.
Everything runs in the browser. Nothing to install.
Grades your playing
The core of both apps: they listen or watch, and score every note.
Nothing is graded. You cannot play a wrong note, so the only question is whether you like what you hear.
A place to write your own music
No. You play along with their lessons and songs.
The whole thing is your project: patterns, recipes, sounds, and a song arranged from them, private until you share it.
An assistant that edits and explains
Neither has one. Feedback is a score and a hint.
The co-producer changes your project when you ask, explains each change, and every turn is one undo.
Teaches the theory
Some, in the course of learning songs and exercises.
By ear: every term explains itself when you point at it, and the lessons are loops you take apart and hear.
Price to start
A free trial, then a monthly subscription.
Free, and the free plan is the whole instrument, with a limited amount of co-producer time each month.
Where Yousician and Melodics are the better choice
If you want to learn to play guitar, piano or drums with your hands, use them. This instrument will not teach your fingers anything; there is no microphone and no controller.
Their song libraries are licensed real music you can play along to. Ours are packs of grooves we made.
Melodics on a pad controller is one of the best ways to build rhythm in your hands. Our grid builds it in your ears.
This is for you if
You want to write beats and songs, and practice apps kept you playing other people's.
You do not own an instrument or a controller and do not want one yet.
You want to understand why music works, not only to hit the right pad on time.
You want to start free, in a browser, tonight.
Stay with Yousician and Melodics if
You want to get better at a physical instrument. That is exactly what Yousician and Melodics do.
You want a score and a streak to keep you practising.
You need lessons on real, licensed songs.
Questions people ask
Is this a Yousician alternative?
For learning to play guitar or piano, no; Yousician grades your playing and this does not. For learning to write music, yes: a beat on a grid, notes that stay in key, terms that explain themselves, and a co-producer that says why each change works.
Do I need a MIDI controller or an instrument?
No. Everything is clicked or typed in the browser. Melodics needs a pad controller, keyboard or electronic kit; Yousician needs a real instrument or your voice. Here you need neither.
Does it teach music theory?
Yes, by ear rather than by vocabulary. Keys, scales, chords, progressions, swing and arrangement each come as a loop you play with, and every musical word explains itself when you point at it.
How much do Yousician and Melodics cost?
Both are subscriptions after a free trial, with prices that vary by region and promotion. When we checked, listings put Yousician between about $15 and $30 a month and Melodics between about $10 and $30, with yearly plans much cheaper. We could not read the exact prices from their own pages, so check before you buy.
Can I use this alongside a practice app?
That is probably the best plan. Practise your instrument in Yousician or Melodics, and write here. When you know what a bassline is because you made one, playing one gets easier too.
How we checked
Everything about Yousician and Melodics on this page was read on September 22, 2026 from these pages. Prices and features change; if something here is wrong or out of date, tell us through the contact form and we will fix it.