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good Iphone apps for guitar/piano/violin playing fun for my daughter in isolation in China!
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My daughter has started 4 weeks of isolation in China before starting a job there. She wanted to take a guitar but had to sacrifice it for more essential items. She's very musical and I was thinking there must be some fun and not crap standalone apps for iphone (no ipad exclusive apps) that could be used to strum some chords, or mimic violin playing etc.
I don't think she'd get into anything too techy looking like thumbjam, so something with some early gratification but not childish would be good. Piano stuff is a possibility too but i feel screens are not great for that especially a phone screen. She's 24 y/o btw, and not having the easiest time, as you can imagine, staying where no-one in the hotel speaks English it seems, and the food etc is different.
Any recommendations? Thanks.
signed, fretful father.
Comments
Garageband , easiest and free.
GeoShred + GeoSwam = instant gratification.
What you are looking for in my opinion...
GarageBand ftw.
thanks people. I didn't think garageband had anything like that but I'll investigate. plus the geoshred/swam. Never really looked at that
With violin stuff i was imagining an app where you use a finger to fret (wrong word) the note, and another finger to bow. I guess there must be something out there like that
A lot of people are jamming together online now. Endlesss and jamulus, and so on.
For playing around on one's own, she might get into Gestrument.
Garageband would be my choice too. doesn't get too techy. She can play with different instruments... Would be a perfect choice. Too bad she couldn't take any instrument there. If she could but had problems with luggage space, a mandolin or ukulele (or melodica, etc.) would be great.
If she is spending a long time in isolation like this, I would really recommend she do some singing. There's nothing like singing / chanting to lift the spirit, in my experience. Another thing I think would be very helpful for her would be something like this laughter yoga:
She'd have to be a bit open minded maybe to do this but I am sure it would help her a lot. There is even some scientific seal of approval on these approaches if that would be needed to motivate her:
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/feb/17/mindfulness-laughter-and-robot-dogs-can-help-relieve-loneliness-study-says?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
As for apps, yes, GeoSwam sounds like a good option. Or maybe finger fiddle.
I did two weeks of quarantine myself in China last year, though I was lucky that it was mostly at home. I found it very easy, but everyone is different. I wish her well.
Thanks everyone. I'll look into those a little more. Do you live in China Gavinski? regarding the singing, I'm pretty sure she'll be doing some of that anyway. She is into musical theatre so sings, dances and acts... She landed a job in a Harry Potter show at the new Universal Studios Beijing theme park which is about to open. It amazes me.
Also finger fiddle might have been the thing I'd heard of, but I'll look at those other things to. I really must check out Garageband on Ios, plus the online jamming thing which I'd never considered before.
Indeed I do live in China, for now anyway. Was planning to leave last year but covid got in the way. Still, I'm definitely glad I spent 2020 here and in Thailand rather than in the UK!
By the way, online shopping is highly developed in China. I'm pretty sure she could arrange to get a guitar or any other instrument delivered to her hotel room.
And the same goes for food, she could probably order delivery to her room, etc, including western food, at very reasonably prices
@Gavinski yes, probably could. I wonder if I could do that for her somehow. I might look into it.
She had quite a few initial issues on arriving at her hotel. She tried to log in to wechat which is how she was to communicate with her employers and the also the hotel, but was blocked because of some perceived violation. But she'd only communicated with her employers, and is not in the habit of doing controversial things. She needed a wechat friend who she'd known for more than 6 months to re verify her account. But she doesn't have one. Then her wifi wouldn't connect, then her charging devices wouldn't fit the sockets (despite theoretically being the same as NZ plugs but upside down. I tried to phone her and there was a shrieking interference on the line. there was much panicking and freaking out. No-one spoke english at the hotel. It was all horribly stressful for a while, but things have settled down now, most things are working except the wechat issue. She also has several food intolerances and no real control over what she is served, but the staff have been friendly to her.
I could never have done anything like she's done. I'm not remotely intrepid.
order food using what? I understood most things happened through the wechat payment system. She won't have a Chinese bank account until out of isolation in Beijing. Could she do that via a website? She's isolating in Guangzhou initially.
If she doesn't have wechat, that is quite a pain in the ass, as it is a pretty essential part of life here. Does she have alipay? If she has neither alipay nor wechat I'm not sure what to suggest. She could download the meituan app to order food but I think she would have to use wechat or alipay to pay for it. Maybe she could link a bank card to it directly but I think it would need to be a Chinese one. These are all things the hr at her new company should be able to help with, no? Many, many things in China are much easier to do than in the west, but some things can be a pain, particularly without wechat. Are u sure her wechat was blocked for a violation? I've never heard of that happening. Maybe she needs to appeal that or find out what happened.
Yeh the wechat thing is a mystery. Her employers have been trying to sort it but to no avail currently. So, these are English speaking Chinese who have been trying to help. I think it may have to wait till she's out of isolation and will be given a Chinese phone, and then everything should come right as she'll have a new number and a new account.
I think she's coping OK, she has lots of shows to watch both on an SSD and Netflix, watercolours, pencils, and the usual social media, as we bought plans to 2 high quality VPNs. The extras, like buying in something special will probably not be successful unless the wechat issue is resolved. I even sent a help request from my end to the English language wechat help page. The reason for the banning is very strange and unfortunate. Apparently the banning was for some sort of violation. I haven't seen the screenshots myself, but her employers have.
Thanks for your input on the matter.
Actually one more question for you... When her devices wouldn't connect to hotel wifi, some staff there helped her install a Chinese browser to enable her to connect. Does that sound right? I was a bit worried about whether that might hamper her use of her VPNs etc, but it doesn't seem to have. She's not using that browser though, she's using Chrome.
@SimonSomeone Guitarism, FingerFiddle, and GeoShred - highly recommend. If that’s all I had I would be content.
GarageBand’s touch instruments are really good, very expressive and are backed by a self contained DAW where you can make complete songs with virtual drummers playing along with your song.
I really like the smart strings. You can set your scale then play legato by gently swiping or tap for pizzicato. You can also switch to the fretboard and play that way too.
And they sound really good, they’re based on the samples from Logic.
The guitar and piano are fun too and it’s easy to record what you play into either the timeline or live loop cells.
Once you’ve recorded from the smart/touch instruments you can edit what you played in the piano roll.
GarageBand is deep. It might not look like it on the surface but it’s a very powerful and capable Daw.
For singing, Smule is really fun karaoke app where you can sing alone or with others all over the world. It’s really well done. I’ve lost many hours singing. Very fun.
Thank you all very much. Checking some of these out today!