A while back we had a look at Songsterr, a play-along site for guitarists. Well, Songsterr has had an update…
Previously, Songsterr worked along the lines of chords – which you would play along with. Now it works with full-blown guitar TAB. If you’re not familiar with TAB, it’s a musical notation that tells you which string and which fret on that string to play. Whilst the update is great news for anyone who wants to get their teeth into some serious guitar playing, there doesn’t seem to be an option to switch back to just chords – which may put off players who aren’t familiar/comfortable with TAB. Having said that, though, the song list has massively increased, and it looks like Songsterr is going to become a great tool for guitarists. I only hope it lasts, given the face of OLGA.
Moving on – I discovered a great guitar toolkit for the iPhone… oddly enough, called “Guitar Toolkit”. Just search the app store to find it. It costs £5.99, but seems worth it. So what do you get for the money? You get a tuner, which works using the iPhone’s microphone, a metronome, tones for tuning up by ear, and a fairly comprehensive chord library. Given that tuners can cost more than this app on their own, and a book of chords will set you back a few quid, this actually turns out to be pretty good value for money. Here are a few screenshots:
The only thing currently missing from the application is the ability to turn the chords from right-handed to left-handed layout… but I’m hoping that will come in a later update.
Finally – if you can’t find what you’re looking for on Songsterr, and you don’t just want to noodle around with chords freestyle, I found a great source of sheet music to buy: musicnotes.com. By installing the musicnotes viewer (and, for some songs, the Sibelius Scorch viewer) on your computer, you can load sheet music in your browser and print it out. So far I have seen and used their versions of Fix You by Coldplay, and You are Good by Israel Houghton. There seems to be a wide variety of music on there, so it’s well worth a look.
So there we go – a short roundup of some guitar-related sites and tech. Now go, make beautiful music :)
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