Guitar Tools

Behind every audio masterpiece there are, most of the times, a lot of hours of theory. In case the guitar is the musical instrument of your choice, various computer applications can replace teachers. Guitar Tools is one of them and tries to offer a helping hand in figuring out notes and why it is important to know them.

Running the application brings up the main window, fitted with a customizable fret and all other available features. You are able to select one of the various MIDI instruments to play chords, because it does not only displays notes.

The library of content is rich enough to keep you occupied some time, each chord being colored in a different way so you easily memorize them. There are four learning types to better suit your style. You can choose to select scales, chords, diatonic, or fully customize what you want to hear, with info displayed on the selected scale.

The application features a couple more tools to help you further put knowledge into practice. You are able to bring up the fifths circle, to better visualize notes and learn chords.

Accessing the tools menu lets you open the practice panel. It represents, more or less, an integrated media player with a fitted metronome. It lets you load a decent amount of audio or video formats to play along, in case you have a tutorial on your hard disk drive.

Taking everything into consideration, we can say that Guitar Tools is a good substitute for a musical theory teacher. It's not the best application of its kind, but it manages to include useful features letting you learn at your own peace. Moreover, the integrated player gives you the possibility to put learned theory to good use.