I wasn’t great at playing the guitar, I never thought that I could improve and no teacher was able to give me the instruction I needed… and then I stumbled across the Coach Guitar app. I never really thought of the prospect of learning from my phone, it just didn’t seem natural? I thought that seeing chords on-screen would be strange, cramped or even just impossible to follow — but it wasn’t.

I would be lying if I said that Coach Guitar didn’t help me, because it truly did. Essentially, the Coach Guitar application allows for easy learning of the guitar, whilst avoiding the whole confusion of music theory. The application is 100% visual, the short videos are complemented with an animation that shows you the bars and fingers that you shall be needing in this portion of the song.

For example, the first song that I tried to learn was Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin. I had first been taught this a couple of years ago from a guitar teacher, however, I didn’t seem to progress or even get past the first verse. With Coach Guitar, that all changed. I went to the “My Lessons” tab, click the Stairway to Heaven folder and was greeted with 31 videos. Yes,you read that correctly –31 videos. Now, this seemed daunting, but considering that the application was free to try, I gave it a shot with my best interests in mind.

There were nine sections, each containing no more than five, short videos. As I had said earlier, each one had a clear animation and video and these helped unbelievably. For a novice guitarist, this was almost heaven. I managed to learn the intro within 10 minutes of using the application. I really loved the way that I could click “Slow” on every video to play it in slow motion — it’s a brilliant idea!

Anyway, I learnt Stairway to Heaven within about 2 hours — the first song I’d ever learnt to play on guitar and it certainly won’t be the last. The app itself is a free download, however, the price for an average lesson is £2.49 ($2.99). The app is extremely easy to use and I could easily switch from right-handed playing to left-handed playing from the settings. The help section is also there to aid you if you are having issues, the blue dot represents the thumb and so on, it’s an easy system for a complex instrument.

I don’t really know what level of praise that I can give to Coach Guitar — I think it’s great for all guitar players, from the novice to the pro. I certainly enjoyed learning, something that I hadn’t done until I had used the application. It’s easy to use and a great way of learning plus it’s free to try. I cannot fault the application and I have had a brilliant time reviewing it. Coach Guitar is the 21st century way to learn songs on a guitar, visually.

Rating 4/5 Stars

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