Gibson’s L&M Guitar (Learn & Master Guitar) app is a comprehensive all-in-one app that is perfect for the absolute beginner. This app is free, and if you have an iPhone or an iPod Touch, there is no excuse for you not to have it right now!

The L&M Guitar app has all the basics you need – There are in summary a tuner, a metronome, chord lists, video lessons, corporate information built into one handy app, and on top of everything, there are no advertisements or lag. The user experience is good, and the graphics are pleasing.

Tuner

Once the app loads, the first tab from the left is the tuner. Note that if you are using this tuner, you’ll have to tune in a quiet environment. The tuner is very sensitive to sound. So if you’re trying to tune when someone is making a racket behind you, you will see the marker moving erratically back and forth across the meter, as it tries to gauge the tones of all the other sounds. Which is everything in the vicinity of the phone.

It is not very realistic to say you must go to a quiet place to tune. Guitar is about playing together and having fun! Therefore I would suggest you to get another electronic tuner for tuning, or learn how to tune by yourself.

You may have noticed at this point that there is a MODE area on the bottom left. Clicking on it pulls up a list of typical tunings that you can do on your guitar. The most basic tuning is the Standard tuning – EADGBE (you will notice that these are the notes on the open strings on your guitar). Select this mode so that the tuner will only detect these notes. As a beginner, you don’t need the other tunings at this point of time.

Metronome

The next tab I’m bringing you to is the metronome. The metronome works just as intended – a guide for you to count your beats. You can change the time signature (choosing between 2/4, 3/4 and 4/4), and also change the tempo by sliding the wheel at the bottom. Once you click on start, the meter will tap according to the requirements that you have set.

Chords

The chords tab is probably the most useful tab in the L&M Guitar app and the one you’ll frequently use. It is a graphical representation of which finger to use, and which fret to press for a chord.

This list is not extensive – it only holds the basic-ish chords.

Here is a quick note on how to read the notes page:

• Red “x” reminds you not to play (or mute) the particular line.
• Black “o”s means play to the open string.

So in order to play this A7 chord, simply press down on the DGB lines on the second fret with your 2^nd-4^th fingers.

Lessons

In the next tab, Lessons, you will find high quality, professional Learn & Master Guitar training programmes made by Gibson in collaboration with Legacy Learning Systems. You don’t want to miss anything here if you love guitar! Part 1 shows a masterful 2-minute performance by the author, Steve Krenz.

Gibson.COM

Finally there is also some corporate information on Gibson in the last tab that brings digital media to your phone. It allows you to browse through the Gibson instruments, News, Press Releases, Forums, Twitter…

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