Welcome to The Osu! Beginner's Practice Tour

That is simply a fancy name for the list of songs and helpful information that will compose this guide.

Introduction

Hello guys and girls!!

Some things you should know:

Osu! Terminology I will be using:

Recommendations:

The Tour Begins!

1. First Stop! These songs are here to get you oriented with the basics

2. Checkpoint! We're warmed up and ready for some real learning

3. About halfway through the Tour! Now we pick up the pace and get into some technique

4. The home stretch. These songs will make you use better control and focus to complete

- Looking towards the future, and improving beyond what you've learned -

Congratulations!!! You've made it this far!

*** This guide is stilll a work in progress. Things may be added, things may be taken away. This tag will be removed upon full completion ***

Welcome to osu! I'm Dlowe, and i've been playing osu! for almost a year now. I know a bit of what's what in Osu! now, but I know that when I started out, I really could've used a guide to help me find some good songs and kick start the learning process, and that's what I hope to help you with here! You're in for a fun time playing this game, whether you get really into it, or just want to play it every now and then for fun! This guide is here to help you start out, and to find some easy songs for you to learn with, and then to get ready to play the multitude of harder songs in the game.This guide is for those of you who have enough knowledge of this game to be able to handle yourself, and not need someone to hold your hand as you click circles. The techniques talked about will be beginner level, but will take effort on your part to accomplish, and then you will have to practice and work to get better and improve upon the things you learn here. I'm only here to give you a little push.Throughout the guide, you will hear me use many terms that may be new to you, but I will touch on a few of them here before we begin.The percentage of score you get from the timing of your clicks. The 300/100/50's are identifiers of this. The further off beat you are of a circle, the less accuracy you will have.The number of hits you have gotten in a row. Missing a note, or combo breaking on a slider (Slider breaking) will reset this to 0.One frustrating way to lose combo is, without missing, to reset to 0 by missing a small portion of a slider, or starting the slider too early. This will cause many frustrations, but if you get the hang of working to avoid sliderbreaks early on, you will have a much easier time as you progress.Before beginning, I suggest getting a better skin than the osu! Default skin, which has unwanted clutter. (I use my own, found Here. )To use it, you will need to extract it to your /osu/skins directory.Secondly, most people will recommend using your keyboard to click. The default keys are z and x, but these can be changed. While this is not required by any means, it will make things much easier as you get into the more difficult songs, and you will not regret making the adjustment now.This is our first song today, for its simplicity. It's a Drum and Bass song, so all of its notes are very static and on beat, so there will be no tricky rhythms.While playing this song, work on hitting the notes on beat, and getting a high overall accuracy. The song is pretty long, so keep focus, and get the hang of tapping to the beat.Here we have one of my favorite songs from when I started Osu!. Dear You has a very catchy rhythm, but that same rhythm can have some tricky moments in it. This beatmap has a lot of the simplicity of the one before it, but it throws some tricky elements in the mix. Watch out for the bouncing sliders, and for the quick circles following them. This song is faster paced than Kanjou Chemistry, but don't let that discourage you. Work on getting a decent combo on this song, and not getting mixed up on the trickier parts.ONE OK ROCK is the name of the band that plays this song. I hope you like their music as much as I do, because it's pretty awesome. This map has some great flow, in both this difficulty, as well as all the others. Get into the flow rhythm of the drums, and you'll have a good idea of where the notes will hit. The map also has some sliders that are much shorter than most other sliders, so get used to adjusting to these shorter sliders, and it will come in handy later on. During your plays of this song, try to get as many 300's as you can, and don't let yourself break combo on the sliders. Good luck, and enjoy the sick music!Jishou Mushoku is a beautiful song. The beatmap is equally well done. This song has sliders that chain into each other in quick succession. These can quickly destroy a combo is you don't hit the next slider fast enough. One technique you can try if you have trouble with these is to alternate fingers while going from one slider to the next. While practicing this song, try to hold your combo through the quick notes, and just enjoy this beautiful song, because osu! is a game built around the music in it, so enjoy playing these songs!Our first Anime Opening song. You'll see plenty of these as you play Osu!. They're all a minute and a half, and generally popular. This one, in particular, has a very catchy rhythm, but tries to trick you at moments throughout the song. Watch the approach circles carefully, and don't get in too comfortable of a rhythm. Your practice with notes in quick succession as we saw in Jishou Mushoku will come in handy in this song, so don't hesitate to go back and practice that song if you need to. Work on getting high accuracy on this song, with its quick notes and mix ups in rhythm. Once you get an A on this song, you'll be ready for most mix ups thrown at you.Kodoku Egoism is a perfect followup to the previous song on the list. It has many of the same elements, just a bit more complex. We'll see longer chains of notes here, which can be a hassle to follow while clicking on beat. Practice makes perfect for that, because its all about getting the flow of those chains. We also have more rhythm changes in this map, more frequent this time around. There are a few spinners in the middle of this song as well. On these, practice spinning in a small circle around the middle point. A one inch diameter circle is a great size to try to spin your mouse. This is much easier than huge circles, and can achieve much better spins. The big detail of this map is the speed. This map is around 180 bpm, so the pace is going to be a bit faster than any of the previous songs. Don't be intimidated, just use what you've learned and the speed increase will be overcome in no time!This song is a great song to practice consistency and accuracy, because it has some long chains of notes, and more of its notes are on a consistent beat. It does throw in a couple tricky rhythms at some points, but by this time, you should be able to read those and adapt pretty quickly. This is a fun, catchy song, so enjoy playing it! Work on consistent tapping and aim for high accuracy in this song. Don't rush the long chains of circles.Here we have lastendconductor. This song will test your precision and mouse control. We find a mix of long sliders and chains of notes in this map, both requiring steady mouse movement to keep yourself on the notes and from breaking your combo. The chains of circles that form large circle shapes are very difficult to get the hang of, but practicing them and getting the hang of the flow of the song makes them easier. Try to follow the path of the circles in one steady motion, rather than seeing it as several individual points along the path. Work on these patterns of circles as you play through this song, steadying your mouse control, and not letting your movements be too rigid, nor too loose. Try to find a steady medium.From the first note of this song, we find a new thing to learn. Doubles, and then later, triples. These are made easy by alternating to hit both notes, or all three, and take some practice to get used to. This song has plenty of doubles to practice, so even after completing this song, it won't hurt to go back and try to improve your score a few times. These doubles and triples will show up more and more as you get to harder songs, so the more you learn them now, the better off you'll be. During this song, be careful not to rush your notes, and get used to the feel of doubles, triples and sliders in conjunction. Go for high accuracy!!Our first Hard song!!! This is exciting! This song pulls together everything we have learned so far, and will test your abilities thoroughly. The song changes in speed at different points, which will test your reading ability and patience. We have even longer chains of single circles to test your mouse control. And now, we see triples again. This map may take a few tries before you get the hang of these techniques, but you should be able to do it with a bit of practice! Work on getting an A on this song, and you're well on your way to playing Hards, and before long, Insane songs!!Sliders. And lots of them. That is the theme of this song. This song is five minutes of sliders chaining into eachother, and some quick mouse movement to keep up with them. You're going to want to practice your alternating for this map, without it, you're in for a tough time. This song may take some time to get the hang of, and will be especially hard to get a high combo on, due to the high possibility of slider breaking. When playing this song, practice your alternation of keys, and focus on reading the sliders. Don't let yourself get into a habit of trying to rapidly hit notes when you get a bit overwhelmed. Try to get as high of a combo as you can!You've gone through all of the material I have set out so far, now it's up to you to expand upon what you've learned and branch out and play more songs! Ask friends, play multiplayer, or just browse the Beatmap Listings to find more songs that you can enjoy playing and improving with! Branch out into the awesome community and have a great time on osu! Feel free to add me and talk to me whenever i'm on, and I hope to see you around! Thanks for using my guide!!