As a guitarist I love hearing about new gizmos and gadgets created for us to play around with. Some of them are useless gimmicks and others are really useful. Seeing as how popular the Apple Iphone has become, this month I am going to look at a few guitar related apps you can get for it. I don’t own an Iphone so I can’t do a detailed review, but I will explain whether or not these gadgets can be useful or not. You may be able to get programs similar to the ones below for any phone so even if you don’t have an Iphone have a look and see if there are any useful programs you can get (maybe even free ones).
PLAY GUITAR
This one caught my eye over at YouTube. People were playing Metallica riffs, Sweet Child O’ Mine and other guitar parts. This one rates high on the gimmick radar and I don’t think it would be that useful for guitarists. On the other hand, it could be useful to come up with simple ideas for songs or to help you memorise scales or riffs. But don’t expect it to help you improve guitar. Remember just like Guitar Hero: it is only a toy.
GUITAR TUNER
Now this one I consider to be useful. It uses the inbuilt microphone so it can be used to tune an acoustic guitar (or an amplified electric guitar) without any other cables. If I had an Iphone I would definitely get one of these so I don’t need to bring a guitar tuner to my gigs or rehearsals.
CHORD LIBRARY
For a beginner learning chords takes some time. This app could be very useful in memorising chord positions. A quick reference like this can help you when you forget the fret positions of a chord or want to learn new ones.
METRONOME
As I will cover in a later lesson, practicing with a metronome is an important part of your development as a musician. You can get metronomes for your computer but having one on an Iphone would be handy for practicing wherever you are. I have a metronome pre-installed into my phone which I actually use on occasion. I wouldn’t pay money for one though.
EAR TRAINER
I think this is a great idea. Ear trainers are programs that help you determine the type of scale, chord, interval or even single note by using your ears. While not an essential skill (many guitarists don’t have this ability), training your ears can develop you as a musician. I will write lessons on ear training later on.
The program Karajan was made with this in mind. I think every guitarist should have some sort of program like this to develop their listening ability. For people who travel to work on trains every day this could be a great way to develop your ears.
SUMMARY
I’m sure there are plenty of other apps related to guitar, but the ones above seem to be more useful than gimmicky (apart from the guitar simulator). If anybody has used any of these apps, please leave a comment so I can put more information up that will be useful for people thinking of getting some of these. If I had an Iphone, I would either get the guitar tuner or the ear trainer apps. Remember that all of these types of programs are available for computers. Some even for free. I will create reviews on software I have tried later on.
NOTE: I am not affiliated with Apple or any of the makers of these programs. I just thought it would be interesting to mention them.