My Fav Guitar Apps for the iPhone

Just wanted to give some of my opinions on some of the Guitar apps out there and let you know which ones work well for me.

Guitar ToolKit is one of the first apps I got when I picked up an iPhone 3G.  I use it all the time.  It comes with a Tuner, Metronome, Chord Chart, and Scale diagram.

The tuner works ‘pretty’ well.  It’s not perfect and if there is background noise it doesn’t work great. There are, however, a ton of different tunings available which is pretty cool for experimenting with different sounds.

The Metronome is really good and includes a tap tempo to see what speed the song you are listening to is.  I use this a bunch in rehearsals to set our click track.

The fretboard view is graphically rich.  It looks beautiful.  AND it is interactive so you can strum, touch any note on any fret, etc.  Also, you can display the scales which show up as letters on the fretboard.  Since you can touch the individual notes and hear what they sound like, this is helpful when selecting which chord to place in a song if you don’t have your guitar around and want to hear a chord voice.

I actually have the light version of Guitarist’s Reference, but it is really handy for looking up scales and chords.  The interface is a bit more clunky than I would like and because of this it is just a bit slow for looking things up.  However, the graphics are pretty good and it is very readable.

One of the features this has that I haven’t seen on another app is the chord inversion chart.  It is an informative feature for learning different chord voicings of Triads.  For instance, did you know that the E major chord which everyone learns first (x221xx) is actually the Second Inversion of the E chord.  The Root position is – x764xx

The fretboard view is also switchable between chord numbers and letters.

I don’t like that the introduction screen is an ad, but I guess I deserve that for having the free version…

I have the free version of the Fretboard app too, but this is quickly becoming one of my fav’s!  Fretboard is quick and easy and is a great reference tool to see different chords and scales from the 1st to the 15th fret in one glance.   It is easy to switch from Major to Minor, to Minor Pentatonic, Harmonic, etc.  Pretty much anytime I need to get a quick refresher on a scale in a key I don’t regularly play I grab this and take a look!  For instance those pesky keyboard players who like everything in Eb or Ab.  Now I can see come cool chord forms and inside chords.

The Landscape view is especially cool in that it gives the ‘number’ of the notes in the scale.  The pic to the left shows the ‘1’ in red, but on the landscape view you can see everything from 1-7 all across the fretboard.  This is especially helpful in forming 9th’s and 13th’s etc…

This app also helps me out with different tunings.  I am learning the Mandolin and the chords, notes, and scales are very helpful for me to have right there in my pocket when I get stuck and need to know quickly what the note is, or what a different chord voicing would be.

The app Pitch by Frozen Ape is a nifty little free app for when I don’t feel like using a chromatic tuner or am trying to show my guitar students how to tune by ear.  You simply flip the switch under the string and you hear the string sound.  NICE!

[I can’t find a link to this one, their website only has their other apps and not this one…oh, well]

So, these are just a few of the apps that I use on a daily basis for my job, for my guitar playing, for fun!  I hope you enjoy!!!