Jillie Bean Invites Would-be Musicians to Strut Their Stuff on the Sidewalk

Howler monkeys have better ears for music than I do, but that doesn't keep me from trying to come up with good vibrations. I thought Phinicky Productions' new Jillie Bean musical app might be the thing for me.

Jillie Bean is as simple as any music-playing thing can get. All you have to do is finger strut along a sidewalk tapping out tones between the cracks in concrete rectangles. The sidewalk is six rectangles long and there are seven spaces between the cracks — each space produces a different beep or boop.

Making music involves a lot of trial error because there's no way to know what tone a "crack space" will sound like until you step on it. It would take considerable practice to learn how to play Jillie Bean — much more practice than my furry ears could stand.

I suppose a gifted musician could eventually tap out Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture but the best I could manage was to tap out something that approximated the notes the UFO played in Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

I went to Phinicky's Web site to see if it offered any tips, but it's merely a landing page without any information.

Under the circumstances, I find the $3.99 price tag for Jillie Bean a bit hard to swallow.