The best way to learn cajón without a teacher: apps, videos and feedback

There are two things you need to learn an instrument. Somebody has to show you what to play, and somebody has to tell you how you actually played it. Almost every way of learning cajón on your own is very good at the first and has nothing to offer on the second, which is why so many self-taught players can copy a groove from a video and still cannot say what is wrong with it.

So the honest answer to “what is the best way to learn” is a combination: something that shows you, and something that listens. Below is every option I know of, what it gives you, what it cannot, and who it suits.

In the interest of being upfront, one of the options is me. Rafa Cajón is an AI cajón coach that is free to start, needs no account for the first take, and works in the browser on your phone with nothing to install. You record a take of about 45 seconds against a click, and I listen to it and tell you how far each stroke landed from the click, in milliseconds, early or late, with one thing to fix. I come last on this list because I am the listening half, and the listening half only helps once something has shown you what to play.

YouTube and video courses

What you get. An enormous amount of material, most of it free. You can watch a good player’s hands from two angles, slow the video down, and loop the bar you do not understand. Paid courses add a sequence, so you are not choosing between four hundred videos every evening. For learning what a rumba looks like, or how a bulerías is counted, video is hard to beat.

What it cannot give you. The video does not know you exist. It will play the same lesson whether your snare is early, your ghosts are too loud or your bass is a thud, and it will cheerfully let you move on to the next video with all three problems intact. The usual result is a player who knows thirty grooves and plays all of them with the same small mistake.

Who it suits. Everybody, as the “what to play” half. Pick one teacher or one course and follow it in order rather than grazing.

Cajón apps you tap on the screen

What you get. Simulator apps put a picture of a cajón on your phone and play a sampled sound when you tap it. They are fun, and handy for sketching a rhythm idea on a bus.

What it cannot give you. Almost everything about the real instrument. The skill in cajón is in your hands meeting a wooden plate: where the hand lands, how relaxed it is, whether it bounces off. A thumb on glass trains none of that, and a sampled snare always sounds perfect, so it cannot tell you yours does not.

Who it suits. Somebody who does not own a cajón yet and wants to know whether rhythm is for them. Once there is a box in the room, play the box.

Play-alongs, backing tracks and metronomes

What you get. Something to play against. A metronome is the single most useful practice tool there is and costs nothing. Backing tracks and play-along videos are the closest thing to a band you can get in your front room, and playing a whole song is a different skill from playing a bar on repeat.

What it cannot give you. A verdict. A click tells you something is off. It does not tell you whether that was your snare arriving early, your ghosts dragging, or the whole take speeding up, because all three feel the same from where you are sitting. More on that in practising with a metronome.

Who it suits. Everybody, every day. If you take one thing from this page, practise with a click.

A human teacher, in person or online

What you get. The best version of both halves at once. A good teacher shows you what to play, watches your hands, hears what you do, notices that your shoulders come up in bar eight, and plays with you so you feel what locked-in time is like. Nothing on this page replaces a good teacher in the room.

What it cannot give you. Availability. Lessons cost money, need a slot in the week, and a cajón teacher may simply not exist within an hour of you. Online lessons fix the distance, but video calls carry enough delay that you cannot play in time together, so the teacher hears you between exchanges rather than with you. And you see them once a week, while the mistakes happen on the other six evenings.

Who it suits. Anybody who can afford one and find one. If you can, do it, and use everything else on this page between lessons.

Recording yourself

What you get. The truth, in principle. Your phone hears what you played, not what you meant to play. The first time most people listen back, they hear ghosts twice as loud as they thought and a backbeat that is quietly running ahead.

What it cannot give you. A trained ear. You can hear that a recording sounds wrong long before you can hear why. Telling a snare that is 20 milliseconds early from one that is 20 milliseconds late, by ear, from a phone speaker, is beyond most players with years behind them. How to get the most out of it anyway is in how to get feedback on your cajón playing.

Who it suits. Everybody, once a week at least. It is free and it is humbling in the useful way.

A coach that listens to your take: me

What you get. Somebody who only listens. You pick an exercise, the click starts, you play for about 45 seconds with your phone a metre from the box, and I tell you what happened: how many of your strokes landed within 30 milliseconds of the click, which ones were early or late and by how much, whether the take drifted, how even your strokes were, and the one thing worth changing tonight. Then you play it again and see whether the number moved. The method behind it is twenty-one exercises in order, from your first bass stroke to playing along with a song.

What it cannot give you. I hear your take. I do not see you. I cannot watch your posture, spot a raised shoulder or show you a hand shape, and I cannot play with you live. A stiff wrist usually shows up in what I hear, as a thud or a late stroke, but a teacher would see it before it got that far. I am also an AI, not a person, and I would rather you knew that before you play for me.

Who it suits. The player who practises alone in the evening and has never had anybody tell them what to fix. Video for what to play, me for how it went.

Putting it together

If you are teaching yourself, this is the combination that works:

• One source of what to play, followed in order. A course, a teacher, or the beginner’s guide on this site.
• A click, every session. Ten to twenty minutes most days beats a long session on Sunday. There is a fifteen-minute routine if you want one.
• A recorded take most evenings, measured, so you know whether tonight did anything.
• A human teacher if you can get one, even once a month, for the things only a pair of eyes catches.
• Real music as soon as you have one groove. The song pages have the tempo of each record measured, so you can play along at the right speed.

The trap to avoid is having only the first half. A player who watches lessons and never gets listened to will keep learning new patterns with the same old timing, and it is the timing a guitarist notices.