Fret Zealot: Learn Real Guitar

35 years ago I took guitar lessons and was paying a hundred dollars a month for in person lessons at the local music store. This format of watching lessons on the Internet is so much more efficient and far cheaper! Here, you can progress at your own pace. When you take in person lessons, if you get behind, the next lesson that you pay for isn’t going to go well. Yes, you were getting in person feedback from your teacher, but you are also being forced to move ahead, whether you are ready or not, which can be frustrating. I also noticed that it depended on what mood my teacher was in on how good of a lesson I got. The lessons could be very disjointed because he couldn’t remember what he taught you the last time. Here, each lesson builds up upon the next and you can go back as many times as you need to, if you didn’t understand something the first time. I’m sold. I did the free week trial but I will be paying for the yearly subscription.

I love this and I plan to use it a lot to learn scales and write bass lines. That said, there are 2 glaring mistakes and 1 gripe. 1. On the scale exercises, The Degrees of the keys are not numbered correctly. The “Root” is numbered “0” not “1”, meaning that the “1” is the “2”, the “2” is the “3”, etc... this is a totally egregious error and violates basic music theory. You can even see this in the photos provided on the app page right here in the App Store (photo 5 as of writing this). Luckily it should be easy to fix. Start the key numbering at 1, not 0. 2. When assigning the light colors to the scales. It should be based on the degrees of the key, not the notes. So if I try to color the “1” or “root” note as green, the 3rd as blue and the 5th as orange, then color the 2,4,6,7 as red, it only works in one key. As soon as I switch the key I have to recolor the notes. It seems to me that allowing a person to have a “template” for how they want their keys colored should be a no brainer. 3. Bass players are people too! Haha. Seriously. All the tutorials online, social content… it’s all for guitars. Also, can we get a 5 and 6 string bass version? I’ll change my review to 5 stars if you fix 1 and 2. Otherwise I think it misses the mark just enough. But I’ll still be using it. Great product overall.

I have wanted to learn to play the guitar since I was a kid. I was not one of those who are gifted and can just simply pick up the instrument and go. I have tried many things over the years such as instruction manuals, internet sites, etc. I have always come away frustrated. Over the years I was either too broke or too busy to take lessons. Now I’m in my fifties and I still have the desire to learn. When I came across Fret Zealot I was intrigued. I decided to give it a try and I have been totally satisfied. Learning the guitar is hard work, but this program takes you from total novice through advanced playing. The instructional videos are simple and the LED system resolved the issue I have had with finding my finger placements. It’s made so many things easy and allows me to focus on muscle memory, reading chords, strumming, timing, etc… I love this product! It was easy to put on the guitar and it syncs perfectly to my IPhone each time.