Banjo licks 2 is the superior item of the two.
The App is appealing to the human condition that manifests as “Banjo-dom”
We will anything to do with “banjo” period We like to tinker and even ponder our lifetime friend and these apps are definitely useful and fun.
But I also align with Ross Nickerson’s wisdom in his book the Encyclopaedia of Bluegrass Banjo A-Z that barely mentions licks at all; even though there is nothing this book leaves out.
This sounds like a contradiction in terms but is not.
Why? Because “licks” are invented by players both as carefully rehearsed adlibs (I certainly love these oxymorons your thinking) and as spontaneous improvisations so one can ask is it superior to learn other peoples sentences and quotes or is better to master the letters grammar and syntax and make your own? The true answer is a little of both but think it is that by players searching the instrument themselves by ear, is that which opens an interior faculty infinitely superior to learning lines by rote alone, as the process culminates in one being able to play what one hears immediately like a reflex; I know as a fact having picked guitars for over fifty years.
However this does not prohibit the fun of the these apps and the also very real training of the fingers for complete beginners to actually move well in the first place which these apps do extremely well.
I bought them both because they were cheap enough not to matter if I didn’t find much of use in them but was pleasantly surprised.
In the first app, there was very little I could not play just by hearing them but app 2 was a delight with some really nice conceptions. But do try to hear them and then work them out yourself as it really develops a magical ear, and you still have the fins if you get stuck or frustrated.
The apps are fun and useful but do not neglect “imagining” lines in your head or using recording you like to then work out how to play them with tenacity all by yourself as this is the true secret to becoming a master and why the Jazz masters always said, sit with the records and work them out by ear.
And I am repeating myself for a reason!
It is a point of wisdom that bares the fruit you seek, and eventually you will be able to play anything you can imagine or hear almost immediately that to your listeners sounds like magic.
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