A while ago I came across an advert for a new (to me) app called Jammit. The premise was simple. Original songs, isolated and notated parts. Jam with your favourite band.
Wow I thought. This could be amazing. So I downloaded it and have spent time digging into it and seeing if it can deliver what it promises.
So can it?
Yes and No is the answer…….
Let’s start with the Yes’s as its pretty straight forward. It does indeed deliver what it promises. You can indeed Jam with massive bands and you can indeed make sure that you are playing the right notes in the right order. You can listen to the individual parts and you can even slow the whole song down to ensure that you get the timing just right. So it does exactly what it says.
But the no’s have started to be even more telling for me. The content is quite limited in appeal. For instance, if you are a Dream Theater, Yes, Lamb of God, or Megadeth fan there’s limited choice. Similarly, if you’re looking for easy tracks to get you into playing with scores etc then again, you are sadly out of luck. The other thing that concerns me greatly is the lack of engagement on the apps Facebook page. Many people have asked several times if there will be any new content to be met with nothing but silence. Not very reassuring. Thankfully the Facebook page is still updated whereas the websites “news” section hasn’t been updated for nine months.
So is it worth it? Yes but only if you’ve got a lot of time to spend developing the skills needed to play the majority of the tracks. Is it a useful teaching tool? Possibly, depending on the level of students each teacher has.
Overall, my advice would be to check Jammit out for yourself. If it is the sort of app that will make you work harder then it’s worth investing in songs. For me, it has real possibilities if the developers could/would engage better with their customers and start being a little more open as to where the future of this app is.
The Jammit app can be found at http://www.jammit.com