There are many reasons why you might want to learn to play the guitar, ukulele, or piano, but it’s certainly much easier and more painless to do so with a private tutor or teacher who can monitor your every move and chord than trying to become a guitarist on your own.
But exhale here (and don’t stop reading this article), because things aren’t that hopeless; quite the opposite—you can still learn to play a musical instrument and study theory with the help of your phone and mobile apps, as well as online lessons. And this article will be your assistant and maybe even motivate you.
TOP 5 Apps for Learning Music on Your Own: Notes, Rhythm, and Hearing
If you want to spend your free time productively instead of scrolling through TikTok, Instagram, or X, our EverestMusic team has gathered free apps for learning music theory and simple daily practice in various categories. In fact, there are apps for everything: guitar tuning, metronomes, tablature reading, chord dictionaries, and so on.
Chord!
This is a chord dictionary that offers much more than just a musical vocabulary. The search function intuitively understands you, and you can even filter your searches, which, you’ll agree, is a big plus for beginners.
Beginners can also listen to basic chords. The paid version has colors that show you the intervals. In addition to the chord dictionary, there is also a thesaurus of scales. Moreover, the app includes a mechanism for tuning your guitar, bass, banjo, ukulele, or mandolin.
Functional Ear Trainer
The Functional Ear Trainer helps musicians of all levels master their pitch recognition and ear training skills. The app is based on Alain Benbassat’s proven method. It teaches you to distinguish the role (or function) of each tone in a musical key, making it easier to transcribe, improvise, compose, and play melodies by ear.
MetroTimer
MetroTimer is a reliable online metronome. It was developed by a company specializing in measuring and adjusting clock time, providing lab-level accuracy for your practice.
The app tracks the duration of your practice sessions to help you stay consistent. It also tracks your rhythm with visuals on the screen and feedback via your iPhone’s LED flash.
As for me, every aspiring musician should have this app. I advise you to install it and treat it as a default app.
Music Tutor
The app will help you learn music and enhance your ability to read sheet music. Music Tutor has detailed settings that allow you to select and customize tasks for your skill level. Moreover, the game and reward format make it fun to track progress. The app is suitable for learning how to read music for piano, guitar, and other instruments.
Notes Teacher
Practicing with this app will help improve your speed and accuracy, making it easier for you to read music. Notes Teacher’s trial version allows you to work only with the bass and treble clefs at the same time, but the complexity increases so consistently that you can learn from scratch. The app offers 32 free lessons (without ads) to learn the notes.
TOP 4 apps for playing the guitar and ukulele
Check a few worthwhile apps to get used to the guitar neck, master picking techniques, play complex parts and riffs, and learn to play in time to the music.
Coach Guitar
Coach Guitar is designed for beginners who don’t know anything about music theory, such as reading music notation or even guitar tablature. Coach Guitar guides you step-by-step on how to play your favorite songs on an acoustic or electric guitar.
How the app works: each of your fingers is assigned a different color to make it easier to play and understand, and there are animations that show the student exactly where to play on the guitar neck.
My Music Teacher
My Music Teacher offers a structured and high-quality approach to self-study. It promises that you will be able to see progress within a month. The app records exactly what notes you play and corrects you to make sure you’re playing in time. You can also choose a lesson and get points as you learn.
The app also advises you on which songs to play based on your progress and your practice ability. And My Music Teacher has about 2,500 hours of lessons, including basic chords, barre chords, famous songs, writing, improvisation, and more.
iReal Pro
This app will be a useful resource for practicing and improvising. Here you can find 1,500 chord progressions, each of which you can play with the accompaniment of drums, bass, and piano. You can change the tempo, style (jazz, Latin, pop-rock, swing, etc.), and different musical instruments (electric bass, double bass, vibraphone, etc.).
Yousician
With Yoursian, you can learn to play guitar from scratch. The app offers you step-by-step exercises tailored to your level. Also, you’ll get real-time feedback on how you play and your tempo, thanks to the microphone on your device. There are 1,500 levels to complete, which will turn you from a beginner to a confident self-taught musician playing at a very decent level.
TOP 3 Piano Learning Apps for Beginners
Misolla Music
Misolla Music is designed to simplify piano learning for students and enhance teaching for teachers. Connect your piano to your device, and you can access an extensive library of sheet music or upload your own .mxl files.
Simply Piano
Simply Piano helps you track your progress with clear, measurable milestones. You can learn to play modern hits and classic favorites. The app selects lessons according to your level.
Music Tutor
Music Tutor helps you improve your sight-reading abilities by focusing on speed, accuracy, and confidence in reading music. You can customize the training range, from basics to advanced note lines. The app has workouts in 1, 5, or 10-minute intervals that improve your sight-reading speed.
Review your mistakes and track your progress with detailed statistics. Best of all, you can connect a digital piano or keyboard for interactive practice sessions.
Conclusion
So, as you can see, the mobile music world has already made sure that all self-taught guitarists have quality support, decent resources (which can replace teachers or tutors), reminders of time to practice your playing, and much more that will pleasantly surprise you.
All you need is the desire to learn to play, and the rest is simple.