It’s now easier than ever before to learn guitar. It used to be that you would hire a guitar teacher and invest in a myriad of music books to learn how to play. Today, there are many guitar apps and free online guitar lessons that you can use to learn guitar without spending a fortune. There has been an explosion of quality guitar apps available for novices and guitar apps that will start playing the instrument.

This article will take you through eight of the leading guitar apps for novices on iOS and Android. It covers various topics, including the best guitar learning apps and the must-have guitar apps. Crucially, regardless of your level of experience and whether it’s electric guitar for beginners or improvers or experts, there is something in this article that can help you improve your guitar playing.

#1. Justin Guitar Beginner Lessons

Australian guitarist Justin Sandercoe first appeared on YouTube, teaching aspiring Claptons and Pages. He has gone on to release his own app on Android and iOS – Justin Guitar. This app is perfectly structured and suited for beginners as it covers everything from fingerpicking, basic cords, learning scales to learning whole songs. Crucially the app takes a step-by-step guide to every lesson.

For the most part, the app provides learning games that do not require an instructor. However, 50 of the lessons are video lessons that Sandercoe instructs. Sandercoe’s direct input offers a personal touch that many other guitar apps lack.

Justin Guitar has over 1,000 popular songs to aid your learning process. Additionally, it has a self-assessment system that helps you monitor your progress.

#2. Yousician (Monthly Subscription)

While the developers of this app have created another famous guitar app – GuitarTuna, Yousician has been designed to be as compressive as possible. At its core, it’s a comprehensive guitar course on your smartphone. It has over 1,500 lessons, exercises, and games that allow you to hone your guitar skills. Additionally, it comes with thousands of popular songs you can play along with and gain some feedback.

The app has lessons on reading traditional musical notation and music theory, enhancing your knowledge of music and music-learning experience. However, this comprehensive and great content comes at a price – a monthly $20 subscription, to be precise. As such, you need to stick with it to make the lessons worthwhile.

#3. Fender Play (Monthly Subscription)

Fender Play, a creation of one of the most popular and iconic electric guitar brands – Fender – is one of the best guitar learning apps available. The app is structured as an online guitar course giving a structured path to learning guitar. However, the app is also flexible enough to allow you to choose the techniques and songs to learn first.

As with any other high-quality guitar learning apps, Fender Play comes with hundreds of popular songs you can play along with. Additionally, the app has a wide variety of video lessons, which Fender updates regularly. A unique quality of Fender Play is the fact that it groups lessons according to technique. This allows the student to learn a particular technique and later hone his/her skills by playing a song.

 In a nutshell, this app delivers an experience comparable to having an in-person teacher on your phone. Its monthly subscription costs $10, although you give the app a try using the free trial.

#4. Ultimate Guitar: Chords and Tabs (Free with In-App Purchases Option)

If you are interested in learning some songs, the Ultimate Guitar is one of the best guitar learning apps available. With its free download, you gain access to more than 1.5 million tabs for a range of songs. Tabs provide simplified means of notating music, making them easy for beginners to learn how to play songs.

Additionally, the Ultimate Guitar app lets users play along with 7,000 songs that have backing tracks and in-time lyrics. However, this is a premium feature only accessible by paying $5 through the app. You can also access additional guitar lessons by paying $1 for each class.

#5. Guitar Jam Tracks ($5)

Ninebuzz has developed an excellent guitar app. It takes a unique approach in teaching guitar playing by giving you an avenue to play alongside other musicians or playing solos over rhythm tracks. Part of the process is to teach you how to play scales in different keys while teaching you how to understand the construction of different scales and how notes in the different scales function. The apps are an effective learning tool when you want to understand the fundamentals of playing guitar.

The good thing about this app is the variety of endlessly looping tracks. Using these tracks, you can practice improvising and soloing until you get to grips with playing guitars. You will essentially learn by playing with other musicians and learning intricate knowledge on rhythm and chords guitar.

#6. Functional Ear Trainer Levels

In many regards, ear training has to the uninteresting thing any budding guitarist could do. However, it does help you figure out how to play songs and to jam with other musicians. The Functional Ear Trainer has been developed and optimized to help budding guitarists learn how to play melodies on their guitars when they hear them.

The app teaches users how to distinguish between tones in any given musical key. As such, users learn to recognize the tone’s relative positions, specific roles, and how every tone will likely sound. Practicing with the app every day will help you to break down any music you hear into learnable notes.

#7. BandLab Loops

iPhone and Mac users have access to GarageBand, an app that lets you record and finish songs. Android users do not have access to this software; BandLab is the next best option. While it’s available for iOS and Android, it stands out in the Android world as it is the best of this kind of software. Crucially, it is an excellent way for guitarists, whether novices or experienced, to record and work on songs.

The app lets you record your guitar. It has a multi-track function to add more instrumentation. For instance, it has pre-recorded instruments in the form of sound packs. This is an excellent alternative if you do not own a sampler or synthesizer.

It also has a social network feature, which allows users to collaborate on music with other musicians.