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Comment on Capo: My new Mac app for helping musicians learn their musicparent

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IMHO, your professional background is hindering your ability to understand Capo's target market. You sound like the folks who can't understand why the Mac sells so well when Ubuntu Linux exists.

I go to the occasional bluegrass or folk festival full of beginning and intermediate players. I often feel like the youngest guy in the room, and I'm not that young anymore. A lot of people pick up an instrument after retirement. Many of the old-timers are plenty smart, but they were not raised on software; other musicians are actively technology-phobic. They don't want multitrack software -- they don't need or want all of that functionality. They want something that they can just sit down and use, that has about four buttons that can be pressed with one hand.

Even I want that. When you're trying to play the banjo the last thing you want is to deal with is the cockpit of a 747. Your mind is very busy. Your hands, even more so. I love sound engineering but I can't drive my multitrack software and play at the same time.

And given that the cheapest banjo worth playing costs like $350 new, and a more typical price is $800 to $1000, I wouldn't be surprised if a $39 piece of software doesn't even register on the budget of many musicians. That's just one more instructional book, or video. That said, it's easier to put an expensive piece of software on sale than to raise the price later.

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