The 14 Best Guitar Apps That You Will Actually USE In 2023

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Hey friend,

I decided to write this resource after seeing a lot of “Best Guitar Apps” lists out there, while unfortunately most of them provide a lot of apps that are not actually very useful to the everyday guitarist. This list aims to be different, and was made after testing around 500 guitar apps throughout the years.

You’ll find a variety of apps in here, some of them are useful for any guitarist, while others will be more relevant to different stages in your guitar journeys.

Enjoy!

Cooper

Contents

The Best App To Learn Guitar

Guitar Tricks
Learn to play guitar with Guitar Tricks

After a show, people often ask me: What’s the best app to learn guitar? Guitar Tricks is the best app to learn guitar out there in my opinion. It has over 11,000 lessons (more than any other website or app) taught by expert instructors. The Guitar Lessons by Guitar Tricks app is available on both Apple and Android devices.

Hundreds of Songs

It’s easy, fast, and fun for beginners. Once you’ve mastered the fundamentals, they have hundreds of songs – from “Sweet Home Alabama” by Lyndyrd Skynyrd to “Perfect” by Ed Sheeran.

Dedicated Support Team

Unlike other apps, they have a dedicated support team to help answer questions and keep you motivated. It’s like having a friend in the room to give you guitar tips!

It makes learning guitar EASY

The core learning system makes it easy for beginners to learn how to play guitar. The program has eight full length courses, starting with the fundamentals. Then it moves into intermediate guitar lessons. From here it becomes a “choose your own adventure” where you can choose to learn a specific style like rock, country, blues, or acoustic guitar. There are dozens of instructors, each with their own specialty style.

So are you ready to start playing the guitar? Click here to enjoy a 14-day free trial so you can try Guitar Tricks.

The 14 Best Guitar Apps and Uses That You Will ACTUALLY USE in 2023

The Best Metronome / Drum Machine: Drum Beats+ | | |  App Store
best guitar apps musician

Metronomes and drum machines are a big part of my daily practice routine and will be of a major help to anyone in order to get your time-keeping skills a lot better. Besides, it’s always a ton of fun to play your favorite songs with some special / groovy drum beats – since the song feels totally different and fresh. For example, try Green Day’s Time of Your Life with a funky blues beat and see what I mean. (;

The app currently has over 300 beats that were recorded by a real drummer, (not by a drum machine, like how it is in most similar apps) so it feels very real. I hook it up to my Bluetooth speaker, choose one of the countless drumming patterns, push play, and it simply feels like there’s a drummer in the room and I’m jammin’ with a live person.

Unfortunately, Drum Beats+ is only available for iPhone, so if you are an Android user and looking for a similar app, check out Loopz which does a similar thing and is also quite great.

My metronome of choice: For the best simple metronome, (when the drum grooves are too much) I use the app Metronome by Soundbrenner which has all the metronome features that you can think of, it’s pleasant to use and to look at, and it’s free.

However, usually I like using a physical metronome instead of an app – since it’s a lot more intuitive.

Another metronome / ear trainer that I really like that also helps you work on your time-keeping skills in various original ways is this trainer by Justin Guitar – which will challenge your time-keeping skills in original ways in order to improve.

Drum Beats+
The best all-in-one chord app for mobile devices / StringMaster | | | Apple Store

Introducing “StringMaster,” your ultimate guitar companion app designed for all guitar players. Whether you’re a beginner still learning the basics or an expert guitarist looking to refine your technique, StringMaster has you covered. With an intuitive interface, interactive lessons, and a vast library of chords, scales, and songs, this guitar app is your go-to tool for mastering the guitar.

Tune your instrument effortlessly with the built-in tuner, experiment with various effects using the virtual pedalboard, and jam along with backing tracks in different genres. And did I mention it has a metronome, too?

StringMaster also offers personalized progress tracking, allowing you to set goals and monitor your development over time. Elevate your guitar-playing experience with this all-in-one app, making every practice session enjoyable and productive. Download StringMaster today and unlock the full potential of your musical journey.

If you prefer video over text, here’s the video version of this post, from my YouTube channel, where I also demo all the apps on my iPhone

 
 
The Best Chord Dictionary and Scale Dictionary: ChordBank | | | App Store / Android

ChordBank is an app that can beautifully show you any chord you can think of (including the fanciest jazz chords) in dozens of positions along the neck. It can do the same with dozens of different types of scales (beyond major and minor) – so it’s a great learning tool for expanding your chords vocabulary and for learning your scales.

I find it useful especially as a songwriter and just as a “guitar explorer”, since it makes it easy to go find a certain new chord voicing that I haven’t used before, and then immediately try it on the guitar, see how it sounds like and which kind of new inspiration it provokes.

It can also give you ideas for different chord progressions in which you can put these chords to use, (click on the “genius” button at the bottom to explore these) and also has features that explain more about the theory behind the different chords. Overall, a great learning and inspiration tool.

View any kind of chord in dozens of possible voicings to get new inspirations.
Learn all kinds of scales in all positions.
Click on the “genius” button to see different progressions where this chord can naturally fit in.
 
The Best Tuner: Guitar Tuna | | |  App Store / Android
best guitar apps musician

There are at least a few thousand tuners out there – but a lot of them are slow, not responsive, and not very accurate. Guitar Tuna is the best free tuner – it’s very fast and very accurate too.

My favorite feature is that it gives you a “lockdown” sound and visual cue when your guitar is perfectly tuned. Still, Guitar Toolkit is better if you are looking for a wider array of features in one app other than the tuner.

polytune guitar apps
As much as tuner apps are nice, they are never as reliable and quick as tuners that attach to the headstock and work on the sound vibrations. (so that outside noises don’t bother them) My favorite clip-on tuner used to be the So-There clip on (~20$). However, a friend recently showed me the Polytune polyphonic tuner(~50$) which is my new favorite, because it lets you tune “on the fly” by telling you which strings are out of tune with just one strum across all of the strings, instead of the individual plucking we’re all used to.
The Best Jam Tracks / Scales Teacher App: Jam Tracks | | |  App Store / Android
best guitar apps musician

Whenever I try to practice my lead guitar skills – one option is to put on one of the backing tracks on YouTube, (for example by looking up “chicago blues jam track in G) but a more comfortable option for me usually is one of the many backing tracks apps that’ll help you instantly have fun with your scales and solos studies.

My favorite is Guitar Jam Tracks by Ninebuzz – It’s intuitive, you can easily switch keys, and you can choose from a variety of music genres. It’ll give you a nice paved road for lead guitar improvement.

It also shows you all the scales you’re gonna need for improvising, divided into positions that are easier to memorize, so even if you’re new to the whole world of lead guitar – it got you covered.

*On an iPhone, make sure to close the Jam Tracks app after you run it, since it has a bug that makes it keep running in the background and draining the battery.

The Jam Tracks app is a convenient first step for beginners (or a toolkit for the advanced player) in the world of playing lead guitar and solos.
The Best Ear Training Apps: Functional Ear Trainer (+ another app called Perfect Ear, see below)| | |  App Store / Android
best guitar apps ear trainer

If you’re really interested in taking your music skills to the next level and you’re willing to spend at least 5-10 minutes a day doing some ear training, (I suggest doing that at least on certain “boost periods” of a couple of weeks) I tried many apps and this is the one I’m seeing the most progress with by far, since it has a fresh approach for one of the key building blocks of ear training as a whole.

Instead of focusing on intervals (which is super important as well, and you’ll learn it in the other apps featured below) – It focuses on learning to correctly identify the different scale degrees in the context of a song. For example – how the fifth degree of the scale (“The V”) sounds like. As a result, you can identify specific notes in the context of real music – where it matters the most. The app also tracks your progress and improvement with detailed stats.

This way of training your ears is excellent both for recognizing where the song is both melodically (what is the melody of the song and how to play it) and harmonically (which chord is currently playing).

Bottom line – when playing lead guitar – my improvisations now sound a lot more “spot on”. Instead of random finger noodlings, you’ll slowly be able to hit the exact notes that you hear in your mind. Also – I can almost always figure out a chord progression and a melody of a song easily, which used to be a struggle for me. An amazing place to be at – that gives me a lot more freedom on the guitar.

best guitar apps
If you’re into lead guitar, improvisations, or anything that involves the combination of music theory and well-trained ears (like figuring out chord progressions or melodies by ear) – this free app will make the biggest difference in your sound.
Perfect Ear – the Beat “All-Around” ear training app

Besides this one, another excellent ear training app is Perfect Ear for the iPhone and Android – which will help you work more closely on intervals, hearing chord qualities (maj7, Minor, etc), identifying different scales, and other essential building blocks of a great ear.

Perfect Ear is also an excellent ear training app with many different exercises you can work with.
The Best Song’s Chord Sheets App: Ultimate Guitar Chords | | |  App Store / Android  

Ultimate Guitar Tabs is my go-to for song’s chord sheets and the best free guitar app. It is the biggest and most comprehensive chords website / app and you can find correct chord sheets for almost any song that’s out there, shown in a very convenient way – with auto scroll, transpose tools and other useful features that work well.

By the way – it’s a lot more convenient to use with a tablet, so in case you have one – this is the time to get it out.

Another thing that I can recommend here instead of reading the chord sheets from a screen, is to print out your own personalized chord songbooks. I explain exactly how I did it with over 10 custom books in this article: Tutorial: DIY Chord Books – Take All Your Songs Everywhere

Ultimate Guitar is my go-to app for chord sheets of my favorite songs.
The Best “Real Book” App: iReal Pro (Jazz Players this one’s for you) | | |  App Store / Android

The iReal Pro is similar to the Ultimate Guitar app, but it’s geared more towards jazz players, and it has some very powerful features that the Ultimate Guitar app does not have. A bit of a learning curve, but once you get used to it and know all the features – it’s a pleasure to use.

You can download chord sheets for thousands of songs, (mostly jazz standards) and the cool thing is that at the touch of a button you can tell the “included backing track band” to play the song at any key, tempo, or style that you choose. (New Orleans double-time Swing to folk, raggae or samba – and dozens more, it’s really fun to play with it and it gives you some cool rhytmic ideas for your own “cover” of the song) You can also mute certain instruments, for example the guitar – so that you can “sit in” instead.

Hook it up to a Bluetooth speaker to enjoy the live band feature at its fullest.

Again – this app really shines on tablets’ big screens – when it’s a lot more comfortable to read the sheets.

The best companion for jazz players, but not only for them. The iReal Pro is a powerful app that not only shows chord sheets, but also renders backing tracks tailored to your taste and style.
The Best Transcription Apps for Learning Solos by Ear: Amazing Slow Downer (App Store) / Android
(Notice – there’s a free “Lite” version that lets you slow down only the first minute of the song, and a full version for 10$-15$ which lets you work with the entire song)

Another one that is very popular with the jazz students and the advanced players.

When you want to transcribe a piece of music, a solo, or any complex part (which in this context means – learning music by ear, either by writing it down or simply by playing it and not writing it down) – you need a comfortable tool to slow it down and to loop certain parts in it. This app does it in the best and most intuitive way, and I use Amazing Slow Downer very often in my solo studies.

It works directly with your music from Spotify / Apple Music which makes it very convenient.

Amazing Slow Downer makes learning solos by ear a lot easier.

   The Best Fretboard Notes and Triads Memorization App: Fret Trainer | | |  App Store / Android

If you’re into guitar theory, you probably noticed that this knowledge is almost useless on the guitar – unless you know where the different notes are located on the fretboard. Since there are so many notes, I struggled for a very long time with having them memorized completely, until I found out a two-part system that finally made it all click for me. The first part is visualizing the fretboard using the moveable CAGED system, and the second one is using an app that really challenges you and pushes you to speedy answers.

I tried a couple of fretboard learning apps in the past, but Fret Trainer is the one I like the most and have practiced with it daily for several weeks, until I felt like I had it all down. (I played it every day for around 5 minutes until I had a total of 5300 correct answers, and realized that I don’t need it anymore 

Besides the fact that it is very well made and intuitive, it has several different methods to work on your memory and let you get used to recalling a note within a fraction of a second – which is what it all comes down to when you’re in the middle of a jam.

Also, they recently added the ability to memorize chord triads and four note chords all over the fretboard as well – very useful for advanced players!

Highly recommended and made a huge difference in my playing fluidity, especially when playing lead and solos.

You can read more about it in this other post: Memorizing the Guitar Fretboard – How to ACTUALLY Do It (An Exercise + an Excellent App)

This is the color match, which is one of the modes that Fret Trainer offers to help you recall all the notes within a fraction of a second.
The best songwriting app | | | Songcraft

For years, I have been searching for a convenient songwriting app that would let me store lyrics + voice notes drafts together in one place, and would sync automatically between the computer and the phone. (So I can access the same song drafts and continue writing wherever the inspiration strikes)

There have been a couple of other apps I liked throughout the years but none of them fit the bill like Songcraft, which I discovered in 2020.

Besides letting you conveniently store your lyrics and chords (in this example I’m not showing the chords) – Songcraft also has several very effective features which make your songwriting experience much smoother. See more below.

Besides letting me record voice notes and syncing them between the computer and the phone, (so I can also add some draft ideas to the song while I’m out and only have my phone with me) Songcraft also has a rhyming dictionary and a “Related Words” tool built in, and several other useful features, which make for a much easier writing experience.

I explain more about how to use Songcraft and these two tools in your songwriting workflow in the full Songwriting Inspirations course – my songwriting course for beginners.

Songcraft is currently a web-app and not officially a native app (their dedicated app is in the making), but there’s a very easy workaround you can do in order to make it appear on your iPhone/Android/PC/Mac screen just like any other app. (Click the relevant platform to see how to do it)

*Songcraft is free as long as you have up to 5 songs in there. When you want to add more, the current pricing is 8$ per month.

Whenever you feel stuck, you can choose a word in your lyrics and open up a rhyming dictionary for it.
You can store all of your voice memos and song ideas at the same place, and the best part is that it syncs with the desktop version of Songcraft as well.
Transcribe+ (App Store only) – The Best App for Isolating Instruments from Your Favorite Songs (so you can for example “sit in” with your favorite bands while the guitar is “eliminated”, and you are the one playing it instead):

Transcribe+ is originally an app to help you slow down songs that you’re trying to learn, but it also has a feature that I find even more exciting and up until 1-2 years ago was nowhere to be found, even on desktop apps. (I know because I looked for such a thing for a long time)

What it lets you do is to take a song that you love and separate the audio into 4 tracks – drums, bass, vocals, and instrumental (guitar, piano, etc.). 

This has many uses for many different musicians since you can “mute” the member of the band that you want to “replace” – and then join the band yourself. So if you’re a drummer, you can take a favorite song of yours and “mute” the drums, bassists can do the same, and we as guitarists can also do the same.

I used this feature when I was making this video, (“Learn Oasis’ 6 Best Acoustic Songs In 9 Minutes“) and it allowed me to “play the guitar” on all of those Oasis songs instead of the acoustic guitar that was already there.

So the bottom line – this can make for some of your most fun and realistic practice sessions – since not every day you get to feel like you’re playing with a drummer, bassist and vocalist that are as good as the professional musicians who play in your favorite bands.

The disadvantages: The song has to be on Apple Music or on your device itself + the full version of the app costs 15$. However, considering this one-of-a-kind feature, for me this was a no-brainer.

Transcribe+ lets you “sit in” with your favorite band – by “muting” the instrument that you would like to replace. (For example – mute the acoustic guitar and then play with the drummer, bassist and the singer)
The Best Guitar Magazine App: Guitar Techniques | | |  App Store

I found out about Guitar Techniques magazine through their app, and was very pleased to find an incredibly high-quality monthly resource for some of the best guitar lessons that I have found online. It’s the digital version of this popular magazine that’s written by world-class instructors that you probably have heard about in other places, and even features interviews and guest lessons with masters such as Mark Knopfler, Paul Simon, Gary Clark Jr., etc.

The focus is always practically on improving your playing. (as opposed to some other magazines that are more scattered, or focus on gear / players / industry news and such) Each month the main topic of the issue is different – so you get to work on many different aspects of your playing. See some examples of random issues in the picture below.

And again – this one’s much more convenient to read on tablets. A fun throwback to the days of written magazines.

The app of Guitar Techniques magazine will give you a bunch of practical lessons every month. Note that it’s much easier to read on tablets.
The Best Singing Warm-ups and Pitch-Checking App (for Singing In-Tune): SingTrue

While this is definitely not a replacement for a personal vocal teacher or a good singing lessons program, (if you are interested in such program then see the paragraph below) SingTrue offers some very neat features, like showing you visually how close you are to hitting the perfect pitch on your target notes, teaching you how to sing scales of a rising difficulty (starts with simple do-re-mi and goes into more complex jumps, to random notes on the pentatonic scales, etc) and tracking your progress.

It also makes for a fun app to use for singing warm-ups before you reach for the guitar and start playing and singing. The downside is that it’s rather expensive.

The coolest feature I like about SingTrue is that it uses the microphone to visually show you how close you are to hitting the perfect pitch when you sing a note, and tracks your progress over time. (here it’s shown in the right phone screen, the horizontal graph)

Bonus: Useful Utility Apps for Musicians

 The Best Audio Recorder: Recorder+ (App Store) / Parrot (Android)

The default recorders on the iPhone and on most Android phones are nice, but lack some key features that this ones have. For simple recordings that are only meant for myself, I use my phone. This includes recording song sketches, band reharsals, and just myself playing and singing, so I can have an “archive” of my progress over time.

One of the two features that I love the most about those “fancier” recording apps is first of all that you can arrange your recorded files in folders. Especially after you start having a lot of recordings – it’s a lot easier to sort them out by folders instead of just by dates  – where soon enough your collection becomes a huge mess and you can’t find stuff.

Another feature that I like a lot is the ability to record in higher quality wav files – which sound better even through the phone speaker, and especially through headphones.

For more serious home recordings (if you want to, let’s say, upload your music covers to YouTube) so I recommend as a beginning to get a nice “field recorder” such as the Zoom H4n Pro that I have. The built-in little condenser microphones in it are great, and you can later grow into it by plugging in even better microphones when your equipment collection becomes richer.

My iPhone 6 and my Washburn WD10 . Smartly combining your powerful smartphone with your guitar can take you much further as a musician, so take advantage of these great apps!
My old iPhone 6+ and my Taylor 12 String. Smartly combining your powerful smartphone with your guitar can take you much farther as a musician and at a greater ease, so take advantage of these apps!
The Best Music Listening and Music Discovery Apps: Apple Music / Spotify

I am a huge Apple Music fan, and I like Spotify too, but what matters is – especially as a musician – don’t settle for less than these two ways to listen to your favorite music. It’s easy to forget to appreciate how these apps changed our lives, by making all the albums that we want to listen to – available at just a couple of touchscreen touches away – and in an excellent sound quality. And even with the cool cover arts to enjoy. (:

Besides arranging your music library, I also highly recommend letting yourself get lost in the other key feature of these two: the music discovery options that adjusts to your tastes. Give a chance to the albums and playlist recommendations that these apps make for you. I believe that exploring new music is one of the best things we can do in order to keep our “musical chakras” running and gather new inspiration into our own sound,

Yes!
 The Best Way To Organize Your Music Life and Creations – The Notes App

I use the notes app very widely with music. Examples are to write down my repertoire list so I always remember what I can “take out of my sleeve” when I need a refresh. Also, to write down lists of songs that I want to learn, musical “enlightenments” that I get to regarding stuff that I want to do, lyrics to songs that I write and much more.

Check out this article I wrote about how to become a better and more organized musician with the notes app, I guarantee you’d be surprised and you might really like some of the ideas there: 7 Ways To Become A Better Musician With The Help Of… SMARTPHONE NOTES (?!)

 The Best “Inspiration Capturing” App – The Camera and the Slo-Mo Option:
guitar apps musician apps 3

The phone’s video camera… Yep! Some people just don’t use it often enough. Especially the 4k camera on the new phones, and the slow-motion options that allow you to later look at the stuff that other guitarists played – and break it down slowly in order to learn it – just like how you would from a record of your favorite guitar hero.

Sometimes, if I am seeing some really good guy playing the guitar, a girl singing beautifully, or a really special performance in any random show, I take a short vid with my phone to remember and inspire me later for my own ideas or learn it myself, instead of just counting on my memory.


That’s it for today. Please let us know in the comments about your favorite useful guitar apps and any comments you may have on the apps above!

Peace and have fun, thank you for reading.

guitar 5
Drew, a Californian guy I got to jam with in Amsterdam, was playing some really cool blues in a unique swing style. Thanks to the quick video that I took, it was easy for me to recall his style and practice it myself later.
guitar jam harmonica
Raw blues

The Ultimate Guitar Songbook (110+ of the Most Fun to Play Songs)

I hope this list has given you some ideas, and if you want to have another bunch of awesome songs in a fancy PDF form (many of them also appear on the list above), feel free to download the songbook in this link.

You” find more details about the songbook underneath the two pictures (and don’t worry, there’s a lot more to it than Wonderwall and Hallelujah, you’d be delighted)

Songs by a Huge Variety of Artists: Including classics by The Beatles, Bob Marley, Oasis, Ed Sheeran, Rolling Stones, Outkast, Eagles, Pink Floyd, Jason Mraz, Eric Clapton and countless others.

  • PRINTABLE: (see the example picture below) For a few bucks you can get the book printed and bound at your local office equipment store. This way – you can always easily come up with a fun song to play in any situation. 
  • The Relevant Chords Diagrams are Attached to Each One of the Songs: This makes the book very easy to learn with – especially in challenging songs.

The Ultimate Guitar Songbook (110+ of the Most Fun to Play Songs) – LINK

 
Alon Cooper

Alon Cooper

Hey! I'm Cooper, and I hope I can be a helpful friend on your musical journeys. I'm a music artist based in Austin & Amsterdam, playing venues with a band / solo, and trying to learn with the most inspiring musicians wherever I go. In the last 8 years I've lived in Australia, northern Europe, the US and more.

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The Guitar Campfire Songbook

I hope this list has given you some great ideas, and if you want to have another bunch of song ideas in a fancy PDF songbook form, then feel free to download the songbook in this link.

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