This iPhone instrument group struggles with creative differences.

Apple’s GarageBand works as a program that doesn’t require musical skills, yet still lets you create some decent songs. Despite a valiant effort to do the same on a handheld platform, Band only occasionally hits the right notes.

Band provides six simple instruments—guitar, bass, piano, two types of drums, and canned audience cheers—that anyone can play and a method to record songs with them. Within each instrument, you’ll tap buttons to create blues riffs, bass notes, piano pitches, and more. A record button captures performances one instrument at a time, layering and mixing the sounds of new instruments as you go. To edit, you can erase notes, overdub, or alter whole instruments.

All that flexibility is great, but for the bass, guitar, and piano, non-musicians don’t have any shortcuts or clues as to what notes they are playing or should be playing. Also, Band suffers from a response latency that’s just enough to throw off your rhythm. So even musicians who know what they’re doing don’t have a tight enough response to make something satisfying.