Play Your First Song
Skip the boring scales and start making music immediately. This course focuses on the essential shapes and rhythms needed to play thousands of popular songs right away.
Like Duolingo, but for Play Your First Song. Tomo turns the whole topic into a game you play five minutes a day, until it actually sticks.
A short one: 11 levels across 2 sections, about 22 minutes end to end, roughly 4 days at five minutes a day. It moves through Making Your First Sounds and Sounding Like a Pro. It starts from scratch.
Free forever · No credit card · iPhone & Android
Key ideas in Play Your First Song
- The right hand initiates the sound
- The left hand determines the pitch
- The guitar as a coordinate system
- The distinct roles of each hand
- The sweet spot is behind the fret wire
- Placing finger on the fret wire
- Placing finger too far back
- Optimal finger placement
- Flat fingers accidentally touch and 'mute' adjacent strings
- The thumb provides the counter-pressure for the fingers
- The distinct roles of each hand in producing a sound
- Arching the fingers allows them to clear the other strings
- The thumb acts as a pivot point or anchor on the back of the guitar neck
- Optimal finger placement for a clear tone
- The importance of finger arch and using tips
- A chord is a specific arrangement of fingers used to play multiple strings at once
You've tried the other tabs
Thirty open tabs. Four facts you actually kept.
You watched. You nodded. By Sunday it was gone.
One answer, then back to scrolling.
Eight weeks. You meant to finish. You didn't.
Tomo gives Play Your First Song the Duolingo treatment: levels, streaks, and quick quizzes that test what you just learned. That game loop is what the tabs above never had, so it's the one you actually finish.
Here's what playing it feels like
A real question from this course. Take your best guess.
Which hand is in charge of choosing which specific note or pitch will play?
Get it right to open this lesson and 10 more in the app.
Where Play Your First Song takes you
- 1
Making Your First Sounds
- Your First Clear Note
- The Three-Chord Power Pack
- 2
Sounding Like a Pro
- Finding the Groove
- Keeping the Music Going
2 sections · 4 units · 11 levels. Built to play, not to enroll.
Tomo is in ChatGPT
Tomo is also a ChatGPT plugin: the same playable courses, built and played inside your chat.
Add Tomo to ChatGPT- What to ask
- “Make me a Tomo course on black holes.” “Turn this chat into a Tomo course.”
- What you get
- Quick questions with instant feedback, hearts and stars, ready to play in about a minute.
- Where it goes
- No sign-up to start. Connect your Tomo account and your streak carries on in the app.
You pick the voice
Play Your First Song is taught in the Explain Like I'm 5 style: no big words. promise.. Want a different feel? In the app you can spin up the same topic in any of Tomo's teaching styles. Same facts, totally different vibe.
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Start Play Your First Song today.
Download Tomo, search Play Your First Song, and play your first lesson in under a minute.