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As a guitarist, I don't think this is a useless tool for people learning how to play, but "the first guitar that anybody can play" is a ridiculous title. Anyon

As a guitarist, I don't think this is a useless tool for people learning how to play, but "the first guitar that anybody can play" is a ridiculous title. Anyone with two working hands and no cognitive disabilities can learn how to play a guitar already. It takes effort, but if you keep at it, learning how to play is inevitable. What they are promising with the title is that this device will take all the effort out of learning, so that even those who don't want to put any effort in can learn how to play. But it will still take effort to learn. Lots. It's not just having to learn where to put your fingers. It's learning how to make your fingers move the way they should. It's learning to keep going even though your fingers just refuse to do what you tell them to do when you first start out. It's also learning rhythm, and musicality, and a whole host of things. I'm sure this tool would make it somewhat easier to learn how to play. But you'd still have to actually learn how to play before you could play.

powrtoch 14y ago
This was my first reaction, then I realized that for people who are trying to teach themselves guitar, this would be way easier than learning to read tablature, and even easier than watching youtube videos (since the mirror effect can be tricky at first). On the other hand, you risk becoming a guitarist who struggles to read tablature or learn by watching other guitarists, so the trade off is arguably high. At the very least, one should learn these things after getting off the ground with gTar. Of course, you're right that there's more to guitar than putting your fingers in the right place, but at the very least I think we can say that for learning individual songs, this would be a big improvement on tabs.
- chrisguitarguy 14y ago
  For learning individual songs, learning to read real music would be an improvement over tabs. The problem with arguing that the GTar is easy for learning songs (and it is) is how much information is lost. Sheet music contains a ridiculous amount of information. Tablature does not. Lights on a wooden stick contain even less. At what point are you doing a disservice to the aspiring guitarist by taking away information?
  - powrtoch 14y ago
    Reading music is a valuable skill, but not one (evidently) that aspiring guitarists are inclined to tackle, even now. I know a lot of amateur guitarists, and the only ones who can read music are the ones who learned to do so while learning some other instrument. I read music, but almost never apply this skill to guitar, because it just isn't how the (non-classical) guitar community communicates. Which isn't anything to be happy about perhaps, but does seem to be the reality of the situation. I'd put reading music in the same category as tabs etc: "You should really learn this, sooner is better than later, if you're serious about guitar". But a lot of people struggle to get off the ground with guitar at all, so I can still see value in something like gTar. Though I do see it as a niche market (musically struggling, iPhone owning technophiles).
  - scott_w 14y ago
    It depends really. For someone learning an instrument for the first time, reading music isn't the problem - guitar tabs are really easy to read anyway. The issue is learning to co-ordinate hand and finger movements. Once you're more comfortable playing the guitar, you can move onto more complex things like reading sheet music, or composing, or whatever tickles your fancy. Think of it like programming: we recommend beginners start on languages like Python, Basic or Pascal to ease the mind into that way of working.
  - TylerE 14y ago
    I disagree with you on sheet music vs tab. GOOD tab is more informative than sheet music. Specifying which string to play a note on isn't something sheet music is very good at, and from a tonal perspective, it _matters_. A 4th string 5th fret "A" on a bass is VERY different from the same note played on an open 3rd string, for instance.
    - chrisguitarguy 14y ago
      You're clearly not familiar with actual guitar sheet music. There's a lot of notational conventions for string indications. Along with fingerings, positions, barres, etc.
bergerj 14y ago
This tool lowers the barrier to positive reinforcement, which is key in continuing any activity.
- ahnunahki 14y ago
  By lowering this barrier doesn't it introduce learning bad technique. When you play guitar and your hands are not physically capable of performing certain chord voicings, the end result is a bad sounding chord. However, with practice you develop the flexibility, finger independence, and strength to perform the chord properly. Where is the incentive to gain proper technique if everything you play sounds good or is very forgiving.
mfieldhouse 14y ago
I reckon this has mostly come about through the shift of guitar being seen as an instrument and more as a faux artistic accessory of a person's identity. Like those people who have guitars hung on their bedroom/living room walls, or on a stand but never play.
ChuckMcM 14y ago
I believe you are under estimating the 'early reward' effect. For those who don't know it, the theory behind early reward is that you create a teaching system which rewards early and often and gradually ramps and you can get more people taught. The thought is that lowering the threshold to success gets you more participants. Its used a lot in game play to draw you in. That being said, when Guitar Hero came out for the Wii I got a copy, realized that they had captured some of the 'feel' you get when you are playing for real (my nominal instrument is trombone but not a lot of call for that :-) and found it fun. So I took the open source bluetooth driver for the Wiimote and created an app that basically let you play a song and pace it with the 'strumming'. Its great for kidding around but not as satisfying as having to work the frets etc. So here we have a guitar that can do a bit of both, play 'fake' where only the correct notes play, or play 'real' where all notes play. Cool idea. The price though. Ouch. Lets look at that for a minute. After they build their first batch, guitars will be $450 each. And they need an iPhone to work at all. So a used iPhone is maybe $100 so you are looking at $550 all up. A student guitar is $60 and lessons are like $100/month so call it 5 months of lessons. I'm guessing that if you don't even know if you like to play the guitar its going to be too much of a 'risk' to invest in it. That will greatly limit the market. If they are successful I hope they come out with a dedicated built in compute unit.
- polemic 14y ago
  I think it's fair to say that one reason guitar is so popular is because of the early reward effect. For this sort of price a beginner can go buy a pretty decent electric guitar and amplifier with some built in effects. Give them an hour or two and they'll be belting out a recognizable Teen Spirit in a few hours. Seriously. Meanwhile: > "...detect exactly what you're playing in real-time and relay each note to your iPhone, which then produces the actual sound." From the iPhone speakers? Um... no thanks.
  - ChuckMcM 14y ago
    "From the iPhone speakers? Um... no thanks." Given what looks like a resonant cavity, and the 'short' battery life of the guitar body, I'm guessing they have an audio amplifier built into the guitar and they pick up the signal from the docking connector.
muhfuhkuh 14y ago
But, this is exactly what learning programming is like. And, from what I've read, learning code and learning music is cognitively similar from a didactic standpoint. Programming tutorials force you to physically type examples in verbatim to get a specified result. The result is a compilable program. Put your hands in the right place on a GTar, and at the end you're that much closer to learning a song. This device seems to make it easier to learn where to put your fingers to get your result. It's illuminated tablature transferred directly to your fretboard.
- oblique63 14y ago
  I agree, music and programming really aren't that different. Just for fun, consider this analogy: Staff => C++ Tabs => Python gTar => codeacademy Staff, like C++, can be quite flexible/expressive, but is loaded with historical baggage and redundant nonsense, and is not easily portable (it was clearly designed with piano in mind). And it has been the defacto standard for a long time (ok, this is a bit might be slightly less analogous). Tabs, like python, are clear, practical, concise and to-the-point, but lack some information and rigidity (dynamic typing), and need certain requirements in order to be useful (a python VM / fretted instrument) meanwhile, the gTar looks to be more of a learning environment like codeacademy: it guides you through step-by-step and lets you pick up the basic idea of what it's like to play/program, while still giving you a slight sense of freedom. But of course, it is still just a specialized learning environment, and not a 'real' guitar/programming-environment.
matznerd 14y ago
I saw these guys present today at TechCrunch disrupt NYC (which is why I think the link made it here) and they seemed to have a vision for bringing the learning curve of guitar down to the masses and providing some area in between guitar hero and the real thing.
jpwagner 14y ago
I'm also a guitarist and at first I agreed with your sentiment, but then I realized: it's a toy. Forget the positioning as a guitar learning tool, it's not a guitar. It's advanced-guitarhero for your iphone.
- RussellZiskey 14y ago
  And you might as well buy a YouRock for way less, even if you get the MadCatz MIDI adapter to play Rock Band in Pro mode.

powrtoch 14y ago

This was my first reaction, then I realized that for people who are trying to teach themselves guitar, this would be way easier than learning to read tablature, and even easier than watching youtube videos (since the mirror effect can be tricky at first). On the other hand, you risk becoming a guitarist who struggles to read tablature or learn by watching other guitarists, so the trade off is arguably high. At the very least, one should learn these things after getting off the ground with gTar. Of course, you're right that there's more to guitar than putting your fingers in the right place, but at the very least I think we can say that for learning individual songs, this would be a big improvement on tabs.

chrisguitarguy 14y ago
For learning individual songs, learning to read real music would be an improvement over tabs. The problem with arguing that the GTar is easy for learning songs (and it is) is how much information is lost. Sheet music contains a ridiculous amount of information. Tablature does not. Lights on a wooden stick contain even less. At what point are you doing a disservice to the aspiring guitarist by taking away information?
- powrtoch 14y ago
  Reading music is a valuable skill, but not one (evidently) that aspiring guitarists are inclined to tackle, even now. I know a lot of amateur guitarists, and the only ones who can read music are the ones who learned to do so while learning some other instrument. I read music, but almost never apply this skill to guitar, because it just isn't how the (non-classical) guitar community communicates. Which isn't anything to be happy about perhaps, but does seem to be the reality of the situation. I'd put reading music in the same category as tabs etc: "You should really learn this, sooner is better than later, if you're serious about guitar". But a lot of people struggle to get off the ground with guitar at all, so I can still see value in something like gTar. Though I do see it as a niche market (musically struggling, iPhone owning technophiles).
- scott_w 14y ago
  It depends really. For someone learning an instrument for the first time, reading music isn't the problem - guitar tabs are really easy to read anyway. The issue is learning to co-ordinate hand and finger movements. Once you're more comfortable playing the guitar, you can move onto more complex things like reading sheet music, or composing, or whatever tickles your fancy. Think of it like programming: we recommend beginners start on languages like Python, Basic or Pascal to ease the mind into that way of working.
- TylerE 14y ago
  I disagree with you on sheet music vs tab. GOOD tab is more informative than sheet music. Specifying which string to play a note on isn't something sheet music is very good at, and from a tonal perspective, it _matters_. A 4th string 5th fret "A" on a bass is VERY different from the same note played on an open 3rd string, for instance.
  - chrisguitarguy 14y ago
    You're clearly not familiar with actual guitar sheet music. There's a lot of notational conventions for string indications. Along with fingerings, positions, barres, etc.

bergerj 14y ago

This tool lowers the barrier to positive reinforcement, which is key in continuing any activity.

ahnunahki 14y ago
By lowering this barrier doesn't it introduce learning bad technique. When you play guitar and your hands are not physically capable of performing certain chord voicings, the end result is a bad sounding chord. However, with practice you develop the flexibility, finger independence, and strength to perform the chord properly. Where is the incentive to gain proper technique if everything you play sounds good or is very forgiving.

mfieldhouse 14y ago

I reckon this has mostly come about through the shift of guitar being seen as an instrument and more as a faux artistic accessory of a person's identity. Like those people who have guitars hung on their bedroom/living room walls, or on a stand but never play.

ChuckMcM 14y ago

I believe you are under estimating the 'early reward' effect. For those who don't know it, the theory behind early reward is that you create a teaching system which rewards early and often and gradually ramps and you can get more people taught. The thought is that lowering the threshold to success gets you more participants. Its used a lot in game play to draw you in. That being said, when Guitar Hero came out for the Wii I got a copy, realized that they had captured some of the 'feel' you get when you are playing for real (my nominal instrument is trombone but not a lot of call for that :-) and found it fun. So I took the open source bluetooth driver for the Wiimote and created an app that basically let you play a song and pace it with the 'strumming'. Its great for kidding around but not as satisfying as having to work the frets etc. So here we have a guitar that can do a bit of both, play 'fake' where only the correct notes play, or play 'real' where all notes play. Cool idea. The price though. Ouch. Lets look at that for a minute. After they build their first batch, guitars will be $450 each. And they need an iPhone to work at all. So a used iPhone is maybe $100 so you are looking at $550 all up. A student guitar is $60 and lessons are like $100/month so call it 5 months of lessons. I'm guessing that if you don't even know if you like to play the guitar its going to be too much of a 'risk' to invest in it. That will greatly limit the market. If they are successful I hope they come out with a dedicated built in compute unit.

polemic 14y ago
I think it's fair to say that one reason guitar is so popular is because of the early reward effect. For this sort of price a beginner can go buy a pretty decent electric guitar and amplifier with some built in effects. Give them an hour or two and they'll be belting out a recognizable Teen Spirit in a few hours. Seriously. Meanwhile: > "...detect exactly what you're playing in real-time and relay each note to your iPhone, which then produces the actual sound." From the iPhone speakers? Um... no thanks.
- ChuckMcM 14y ago
  "From the iPhone speakers? Um... no thanks." Given what looks like a resonant cavity, and the 'short' battery life of the guitar body, I'm guessing they have an audio amplifier built into the guitar and they pick up the signal from the docking connector.

muhfuhkuh 14y ago

But, this is exactly what learning programming is like. And, from what I've read, learning code and learning music is cognitively similar from a didactic standpoint. Programming tutorials force you to physically type examples in verbatim to get a specified result. The result is a compilable program. Put your hands in the right place on a GTar, and at the end you're that much closer to learning a song. This device seems to make it easier to learn where to put your fingers to get your result. It's illuminated tablature transferred directly to your fretboard.

oblique63 14y ago
I agree, music and programming really aren't that different. Just for fun, consider this analogy: Staff => C++ Tabs => Python gTar => codeacademy Staff, like C++, can be quite flexible/expressive, but is loaded with historical baggage and redundant nonsense, and is not easily portable (it was clearly designed with piano in mind). And it has been the defacto standard for a long time (ok, this is a bit might be slightly less analogous). Tabs, like python, are clear, practical, concise and to-the-point, but lack some information and rigidity (dynamic typing), and need certain requirements in order to be useful (a python VM / fretted instrument) meanwhile, the gTar looks to be more of a learning environment like codeacademy: it guides you through step-by-step and lets you pick up the basic idea of what it's like to play/program, while still giving you a slight sense of freedom. But of course, it is still just a specialized learning environment, and not a 'real' guitar/programming-environment.

matznerd 14y ago

I saw these guys present today at TechCrunch disrupt NYC (which is why I think the link made it here) and they seemed to have a vision for bringing the learning curve of guitar down to the masses and providing some area in between guitar hero and the real thing.

jpwagner 14y ago

I'm also a guitarist and at first I agreed with your sentiment, but then I realized: it's a toy. Forget the positioning as a guitar learning tool, it's not a guitar. It's advanced-guitarhero for your iphone.

RussellZiskey 14y ago
And you might as well buy a YouRock for way less, even if you get the MadCatz MIDI adapter to play Rock Band in Pro mode.