Say hello to Brooke Muse. Brooke is a local new mom currently developing a music app called Rūkus. Brooke was born and raised in Santa Cruz, she has a degree in hospitality and professional background in tech. She worked for a nonprofit tech company called Humanitix, where 100 percent of the profits from selling tickets go to charity. Rūkus is a simple app made for you to work on music whether you are a beginner or advanced, to help find your flow and increase micro learning.
The idea is that you can line up guitar chords and play through a song, making it easier to work on learning a piece during a practice session. Brooke also included a feature that lets you connect with a real guitar instructor for live lessons.
Brooke has been playing guitar for three years, finding any chance she can get to play. But once she got pregnant she struggled playing guitar. After her daughter was born, Brooke couldn’t wait to play guitar again. But the moment she picked it up, she felt like the skills she had spent years building had suddenly vanished.
Brooke was trying to find an app that had chord flashcards or anything to work on her guitar skills. In between naps and taking care of her daughter she started to brainstorm about her app, began messing around with ChatGPT. Brooke used this to help her figure out coding and the steps necessary to create an app.
She turned to AI to help solve her more complex questions, and she credits a no-code platform called Thunkable, based in San Francisco, for providing crucial support. They walked her through step by step when she was faced with challenging questions. Brooke says she came up with the idea and creative side of it, and praises the helpful tools of ChatGPT and Thunkable. Brooke is a great example of how no matter what you can or can not do, if you are committed enough to the result you can make it happen.
Brooke needs 2,000 people to download her free app so it can stay on our electronics. If she ends up gaining enough revenue she would love to develop more apps in the future. The creation of the app took around three months from ideation, to creation to publication. She named the app Rūkus because she used to play guitar during breaks at work and was always making a bit of a ruckus.
She encourages others to “dare to suck” and to play for fun and for yourself, without worrying about looking foolish. Getting the app tested and approved wasn’t easy; it took two full weeks of nonstop testing before it was finally published in July. Rūkus uses a connective learning approach to guitar, blending tablature with both chaos and order to keep players engaged.
The “chaos” comes from chords flashing at you randomly, pushing you to play shapes you may not have tried before, similar to using Quizlet or flashcards. However, Rūkus is different from others because it has no hidden fees and extra accessories to add on.
It is up to the user how long they want to practice. It is very important to see the diagrams and repetition to learn new chords. It is beautiful how Brooke took the feeling of being incapable of playing guitar and turned it around to create this app, allowing her and other moms, or anyone to still exercise their brain even if they can not necessarily play. She advises it is okay to not be creative for a little while after giving birth.
Let your creative outlet flow and do not be hard on yourself, she said. It is astonishing and inspiring to see the resilience of a new mom not only giving birth to a healthy new baby but a fresh new app.
This app is for all ages, good for kids and adults. There is a QR code shown so people can download the app. Using the app you can play thousands of songs, making a playlist with many helpful tools. This month the app is ready to be used.
Brooke is also currently working on Rūkus-Ukele, where she needs 12 android testers to get it to play store, if you are interested in testing it out.
Her goal was to design an app that was simple yet effective, finding the right balance between design and function.
Go support Brooke and download your next favorite free music app!
