In this list, we shall talk about 5 free guitar apps for Windows 8. This list comprises of apps that both allow you to play guitar, apps that help you learn playing the guitar, and those apps that act as guitar tuner for your guitar as well. These apps are a good way to simulate the guitar playing experience on your Windows 8 device, and the tuner apps that we will discuss will allow you to tune your guitar in front of the mic of your Windows 8 device. Now I do admit that these apps won’t give you the real feel of either a guitar or the true accuracy of a real guitar tuner, but these sure will come in handy when you don’t have one lying around!
So let’s get started!
1. Play Guitar!
Play Guitar is a free Windows 8 guitar app that allows you to play realistic sounding guitar notes on your Windows 8 device. This app works truly fantastically if you have a touch Windows 8 device, but even if you have a non touch Windows 8 device, don’t fret! You can use your mouse to play some killer songs on this app as well. Once you open up the app, you will be presented with the fretboard of the guitar. The developers of the app have kept the needs of non-touch device users in mind, and have provided the chords option. Simply select the major/minor chord from the list, and start playing. Now instead of strumming a single string, you can strum multiple strings together with a single click. This feature is also useful, if say, you want to learn how a particular chord is played on the guitar. There is also a turn option that turns the fretboard of the guitar to face either the right or the left side of the screen, according to the tastes of the righties or the lefties. Suppose you just want to do random strumming, just don’t select the chords option, and the app will allow you to pick single notes at a time. I do miss the feature that allows recording your strumming. I just hope that the developers of the app add it in an update to the app. Apart from that, the app is simply wonderful and can keep you entertained for hours!
Get Play Guitar!
2. Guitar Lessons Beginners
Guitar Lessons Beginners is a great app for people who are just starting off with learning how to play the guitar. The app has a collection of 60 HD videos (which can be buffered from the internet; they aren’t stored in the app), and apart from that, also has a detailed description in article format about various aspects that may be useful along your journey of learning to play the guitar. When you launch the app, you will be presented with an interface where you can select the level that you want. There are 4 levels, and each level has certain lessons, totaling 52 lessons. You can choose to read about the parts of the guitar, or choose to view the videos that teach you how to play the guitar. The videos play in an infinite loop unless you choose to pause them, and are a key factor in helping to learn to play the guitar, as you don’t have to replay the video again and again. The app has a tiled interface, and looks absolutely native to Windows 8 environment. If you are a beginner, this free app will surely assist you in going a long way in learning how to play sexy solos on your guitar!
3. Guitar Tuner RT
Guitar Tuner RT is the most straightforward and no bullshit app that I have seen on the Windows app store for tuning the guitar. Upon launching the app, you will be asked to select the tuning mode of the guitar- Standard, Drop D, Drop C, Half Step Down or Full Step Down. In this way, you can choose to tune your guitar. Once you have selected that, you will be presented with a popup showing the guitar note names. Here, press the Strum button once you are ready to start tuning your guitar. Strumming each string will light up the note that you strummed. The note names are in order of strings, so if you strum the first string and the third (for instance) note lights up, you know that the tuning is wrong and you can choose tune your guitar appropriately such that the first note lights up. The app supports snapped view as well. Though the app’s description says that it allows changing the color theme, I was not able to find any such option inside the app. Perhaps the developers decide to implement that in future.
Get Guitar Tuner RT.
4. Guitar Chords
Guitar Chords is another cool app that teaches you playing chords on a guitar. The app has sorted interface according to Major and Minor chords, listing the type of chords under appropriate headings. The app shows pictorially how you have to play the chords, showing the fretboard of the guitar, and indicating the number of frets to leave from the tuner part (through numbers encircled) and placing these dotted numbers on the appropriate numbers. It teaches you the various ways that the same chord can be played on the guitar, and this is pretty extensive, if you ask me. The only thing that is missing in this app is that it does not have links to appropriate videos that may show how to actually play it, but the pictorial representation seems pretty much self explanatory to me. Suppose you click on A chord under Major section, you will be presented with different kinds of A major chords like Amaj6, Amaj7 etc. This app also supports snapped view by adequately optimizing the display of the app for multitasking purposes.
Get Guitar Chords.
5. Rock Guitar!
Coming from the developers of Play Guitar!, Rock Guitar! is an app that allows you to play electric guitar notes on your Windows 8 device. All the features of Rock Guitar! app are exactly similar to the Play Guitar! app, apart from the fact that it does not allow turning the fret board of the guitar to match the suitability of lefties or righties. This seems strange to me as the removal of this feature was not necessary at all. Anyways, leaving that aside, the app offers some incredibly realistic sounding electric guitar sounds, and if you connect your system to external speakers, it almost sounds like you are playing a real electric guitar and not an app! The app allows playing chords, much like the Play Guitar! app, and you can play the chords easily by clicking and dragging the chord that you want, and then you can play multiple strings with a single click. The app doesn’t support snapped view, but that is understandable as it is very difficult to fit the entire fretboard of the guitar into one corner of the screen. The app also gives you options to strum single strings, and all in all, it’s a really cool app to have on your Windows 8 machine!
Get Rock Guitar!
This concludes my list of 5 Free Guitar Apps for Windows 8 devices. I do hope that you will have fun using these apps!