X-Nootka

Music is not simply a form of entertainment, having a strong impact on feelings and moods, as well as being a form of art. Behind tunes that give you the chills are countless hours of practicing and heavy knowledge. If you didn't pay much attention in school or are looking for an easy and fun way to master your guitar, X-Nootka promises to help you out.

In terms of visuals, the interface is well-built, with a guitar fitted with nineteen frets by default you can fully interact with, a score that displays notes you play, as well as buttons to quickly view where certain notes are found. There's also an exam mode which runs in the same environment so you don't have to get familiar with more designs.

The most enjoyable part is constantly picking virtual chords put at your disposal, which automatically displays corresponding notes, thus helping you learn even if not intending to. However, it would have been useful to see a continuous strumming function, because you need to press the mouse button each time you hover the cursor over a string.

Paying a visit to the configurations menu brings up a wide variety of customization options. Although visual options only let you set note highlighting color, the application is oriented towards education purposes, with more settings in this regard. These range from the possibility to use double accidentals, change the score display, note styling according to several regions to adding or removing frets and even creating custom tunes.

As mentioned above, you can launch an exam mode to see if you've learned a thing or two. We have to admit that the mode is pretty impressive and intuitive, with a decent amount of levels to choose from. Time is tracked and statistics can be viewed in the end.

An abundance of questions randomly ask of you to identify notes on the guitar frets, name them, show all possibilities to reach a certain pitch and more. There isn't an input field to simply write down the answer, the application providing an interactive approach on evaluation and highlights areas on the score or guitar frets where answers need to be given.

All things considered, we come to the conclusion that X-Nootka is a powerful guitar tutor that is sure to get you closer to your guitar than ever. The intuitive design makes sure accommodation is not an issue, while the fully-interactive interface make the whole experience fun. You can even test out your abilities with multiple exams that encourage you to prove your point or practice until you get it right. Moreover, you can use it on the go, because this is the portable edition of Nootka.