Do you think you're too old for games? Think again!
Guitar games are great for getting you to learn several guitar concepts, that you would otherwise have to learn by mending over a book and studying/memorizing. And no, they're not just for children, adult guitar students use guitar games all the time as well.
For example, think about how you would learn the notes on the fretboard:
- Traditionally, you need to learn each note, note relationships, etc.
- But if you use a fun online game, where you collect poitns and even compete against others, you might learn the notes faster than just trying to memorize everything.
I'll list several great guitar games for all to enjoy in this article, and if you know of any more, please leave a comment and I'll add it to the list after reviewing it.
1. GuitarTricks games
GuitarTricks has a pretty cool fretboard trainer game, which is available to all of its paying members, even on their new free trial membership.
The point of the game is to tell which note the program is asking for. So for the example above, the question mark is on the A string at fret 1, and you have to click on which note you think it is.
Your answers are timed and stored, so you can compete against other GuitarTricks members:
Sign up for a GuitarTricks membership here, or have a look at their free trial.
2. Rocksmith
Rocksmith is a pretty innovative way to learn guitar, it's sort of an evolution of Guitar Hero, only with a real guitar. You can usually find a console version set up at Guitar Center, if you want to give it a go.
It teaches guitar through learning songs. It doesn't slow down the song though but gives you very few notes to play as a beginner, and progressively gives you more and more notes.
You can get the game on Amazon for most consoles and PC.
Rocksmith+ is the newer subscription-based version that launched in 2022. Unlike the original console game, Rocksmith+ continuously tracks and analyzes your performance across all your skills, so your improvements carry with you through the entire library.
The adaptive difficulty system listens as you play in real-time to adjust a song's difficulty to your level - the more notes you play correctly, the more are shown. If you're missing too many notes, the system dials things back to keep you challenged but never overwhelmed.
The downside to Rocksmith: lots of people experience a lag between plucking a note and the song, which defeats the whole purpose. This lag is worse when you use an HDMI cable for audio (which is how most people use their gaming console).
3. SimplyGuitar
Simply Guitar takes a heavily gamified approach to guitar learning, with bright graphics, animations, and game-like progression systems. Sort of like Rocksmith.
The app uses real-time feedback to listen to your playing through your device's microphone and provides immediate scoring on your performance.
The curriculum is built around learning popular songs, with each completed lesson unlocking new content. The app is designed specifically for beginners, starting with basic concepts like tuning your guitar. Lessons are delivered through step-by-step video tutorials with backing tracks to play along with.
The real-time feedback system, while useful, can sometimes struggle with accuracy depending on your device's microphone quality and background noise.
Simply Guitar works well as an entry-point for absolute beginners who need motivation to establish practice habits, but like most gamified learning apps, it has limitations for intermediate and advanced players. The song library is huge and regularly updated, but it may not include the specific genres or artists you want to learn.
The app offers a free trial, but requires a $10/month subscription for full access to content. It's worth trying if you're a complete beginner who struggles with motivation, but don't expect it to replace comprehensive guitar instruction.
4. Yousician
Yousician is a smartphone app that I affectionately refer to as a "metronome with ears". I am not a fan of it for learning guitar, but it can be useful in your guitar-learning arsenal.
Just watch out with their billing practices...
Here is my detailed review of Yousician.
5. Experimental VR Guitar Games
There's also an emerging category of VR guitar games that's worth mentioning, though honestly, it doesn't look that great yet. IMMERROCK is a mixed reality guitar learning app for Meta Quest that lets you learn guitar with your real instrument while wearing a VR headset.
The concept is interesting. It overlays interactive visual lessons onto your real guitar using passthrough cameras, providing fretboard guidance, rhythm exercises, and audio feedback on accuracy. It's even supposed to use hand tracking to monitor your finger placement, but I'd like to see the accuracy of that for fast solos and riffs....
At $11.99, it's affordable and ambitious.
However, the execution has some issues.
Users report problems with visual clarity, comfort during extended sessions, and the general awkwardness of playing guitar while wearing a VR headset. The experience is described as "certainly mixed, and not just mixed reality" with "quite a few missed notes".
More concerning for the future of VR guitar games is that Meta is transitioning away from their metaverse strategy toward AI development. With Meta struggling to attract users to their Horizon mixed reality platform and making billions in operating losses, I don't know when or if this line of guitar games will advance at all.
So while VR guitar learning sounds cool in theory, you're probably better off sticking with the proven apps and games for now.
How will you learn guitar?
So there you have it, several guitar games to get you learning. There are different instances where you would want to use each type, for example:
- the full-fledged console games act as entire guitar lesson courses,
- the more targeted games will be able to help you with specific areas of the guitar.
I can honestly say that games make learning the guitar fun for everyone. Of course, you can't rely on these games completely, but they will help make the learning experience just a bit easier.
There are also loads of guitar-related apps available for mobile devices, but that will be the topic of another post.
this sounds like a fantastimazing game ( it means fantastic and amazing put together)
Rocksmith is much better than you’ve given it credit for. There are two ways to slow the song down so you can see every note, one is by entering the Riff Repeater mode where you can slide the speed from 1% all the way to 100% (you can also slide the song difficulty up and down in the same way). The other way to slow down the song is in the pause menu where you can fast-forward and rewind (without the song actually playing) so you can “read the music” and see the notes of any given section of the song. Also, the lag problem is an issue with a fix for it that works perfectly, you have to get a little box to take the Digital Optical signal from your console and convert it to a headphone jack or RCAs that you then plug into your speakers, it is a MUST and the game works perfectly once you do it.