Can a guitar app really tell you how you're playing?
Frazer's a guitar coach that listens while you play and tells you what to work on next, right in your browser. The hard part, and the part we care about most, is making that feedback something you can actually trust. It's one of the toughest things to get right, and it's what we're working on. Three weeks into the beta, here's how we're going about it, where we're up to, and what's coming.
Read the transcript
Hi there, Jonathan from Frazer here, today on Monday the 21st of September. We're 21 days into our beta programme, so this is a quick update on what we've been up to in the last week.
As you can see on the screen, we're looking at the guitar sound setup. When you're using Frazer to get feedback on your playing, it's important that Frazer can properly hear your guitar. So there's a short onboarding process that checks your sound levels, your background levels, your guitar tone and your tuning. We've tried to really simplify it into just a five-step process, and that's now live.
The other side is the validation work. We've been building this out to make sure we're using professional guitarists to validate the scores and feedback we give to users.
During the programme we've had something like over 1,400 recordings go through Frazer, which is helping build up our learning bank. And we've made something like a hundred fixes, tweaks and updates. So it's been going well.
In the coming week we're going to record the first of our Frazer Original songs. This is a whole structured 30-day learning journey, for beginner guitarists to start with, and then we'll build on it with more advanced journeys. We're recording that this week.
We've also put a lot of effort into the mobile side, to get that up and running. Hopefully this week, or by next week, around the end of September, we'll have the mobile version working. Then desktop and mobile will be at the same level, and we'll be able to make future changes across both.
So plenty going on. As always, we're just looking to get more and more feedback as we keep updating things. If you'd like more updates, and some early access to Frazer as we move into the next phase, there's a button where you can sign up, or it's just on frazermusic.com. That's all for this week. Catch you soon. Bye for now.
The hard part: feedback you can trust
Anyone can show you where the chords go. The useful bit, and the hard bit, is telling you honestly how it actually sounded. Did that change land in time? Did the chord ring cleanly?
Not many tools really try, because it's so easy to get wrong. And getting it wrong matters. A coach that says you nailed something you fluffed is teaching you the wrong thing, confidently.
So we stick to one rule while we build. If Frazer can't measure something confidently, it says so. It won't make up a score. If the room's noisy, or your take's too short to judge, Frazer tells you it couldn't tell. We'd rather say nothing than say something we can't stand behind.
We have professionals check Frazer's work
Saying "trust us" isn't enough. So we're proving it.
Real guitarists sit down with real takes and score them blind, without seeing what Frazer thought. Where they agree with Frazer, that verdict has earned its place, and it's one you get to see. Where they don't, that's a gap for us to close.
As the beta grows, we're growing this panel of players too. So more and more of what Frazer tells you has already been checked by someone who knows. It's a journey we're on, not a box we've ticked.
Three weeks in numbers
The beta's still invite-only, and it's busy. Since it opened, 602 guitarists have played with Frazer. Between them they've recorded 1,443 takes. Frazer's listened and answered 1,742 times. And we've shipped 104 improvements, most of them straight from what players told us.
What we changed for beginners
The clearest signal in three weeks wasn't a bug. It was that too many people signed in, reached the quick setup that teaches Frazer what your guitar sounds like, and stopped there.
So we rebuilt that setup from scratch, for someone doing it for the first time. Five plain steps. Clearer words. An honest tuner. No jargon. Getting from "I've got a guitar" to "I'm playing" should be the easy bit, and it wasn't.
The practice got warmer too. You now hear the real guitar under the chord drills from the very first lesson. And the early lessons walk you round each change twice before asking you to keep up.
What's next
- Guitar on your phone. Still the big one we're working on, so you can play wherever you are, not just at a desk.
- Frazer Originals. Our first full learning journeys. Songs written to teach, that take you from your very first chords to real playing. Coming in November.
- More of the honest coaching. More of what Frazer can hear and tell you about, step by step, as more of it gets checked and holds up.
We put out one of these notes every week: what we shipped, what players told us, what we learned, and what's next. Want them? You can register below.
JonathanCo-founder, Frazer