Michal Ždanský Learning to play the guitar well takes years of hard work. gTar is trying to make this process a little easier. All you have to do is connect an iPhone to the body of the guitar, and thanks to the ready-made application, learning will be much more fun and interactive.
The gTar is far from a normal guitar. Although it has strings and frets, you won't play it around a campfire or connect it to regular equipment. It's more of a hybrid that takes the basic elements of an electric guitar and adds a lot of semiconductors and other electronics for simple guitar lessons. The heart of gTar is your iPhone (4th or 5th generation, support for other iOS and Android devices will be added over time), which you connect to the appropriate dock, which charges the iPhone at the same time. The guitar does not need to be connected to electricity, it is enough with a 5000 mAh battery, which should last 6 to 8 hours of playing.
In the application, which is part of gTar, you then choose individual lessons. The basis is well-known songs in three levels of difficulty. With the lightest one, you will only play the right string, there is no need to engage your left hand on the fretboard yet. In medium difficulty, you will already have to engage the fingers of your left hand. Both the simplified tablature on the iPhone display and the LEDs that are scattered all over the fingerboard will help you with their placement. These are what make gTar a great learning tool, as they show you exactly where to place which finger.
Fingerboard orientation is one of the most important and difficult parts of learning to play the guitar. I admit that as a guitarist myself, I still swim a little in scales, and movement on the fingerboard is rather intuitive. This is where I see gTar's great potential, as it can light up the exact notes that are part of the scale for you. Although the app is mainly focused on playing songs, its possibilities are practically unlimited and I'm sure that teaching scales and creating chords will also be part of it to cover most of the knowledge that a proper guitarist should have.
All sound is digitally produced by gTar through an iPhone. The strings have no tuning, and you won't even find a classic pickup. Instead of it, there are sensors placed on the guitar that record the strokes on the strings and movement on the fingerboard. This information in the form of MIDI is transmitted digitally using the dock connector to the iPhone, or directly to the application, in which the sound itself is then modulated. Thanks to this, you can have a large number of effects at your disposal, and you are not limited to just the sound of the guitar. In this way, you can achieve, for example, the sound of a piano or a synthesizer.
Digital sensing is also used in the last two difficulties, where only the correct notes are heard in the middle. On the highest difficulty, the guitar will be merciless and will take out everything you actually play. As for the sound, you can either rely on the iPhone's speaker or connect speakers to the guitar using the headphone output. The built-in USB connector is mainly used for recharging the battery, but it is also possible to update the guitar's firmware via it.
gTar is currently in the fundraising stage at Kickstarter.com, however, he has already collected over 100 of the required $000 and he still has 250 days to go. The guitar will eventually sell for $000. The package also includes a guitar case, strap, charger, spare strings, picks and a reducer for audio output. The relevant application can then be downloaded for free in the App Store.
Perhaps the biggest iPhone accessory ever? :D
How come the strings have no tuning? The tuning mechanism with pegs can be clearly seen in the photo. I would be interested to know if the tone is picked up by the MIDI sensor in the bridge, or by the sensor on the neck of the guitar, and how the guitar of this design copes with pulling the strings. I have the impression that it's just a toy and a money grabber. However, the idea of building an iPhone into a guitar body is not bad, you could use digital effects there quite easily.
Otherwise, the lighting of the notes according to the scale is fun. how would it look like in a swing song where there is a different chord for each time?
I don't know of beginners who would play a swing right away, I think this product is mainly aimed at beginners, that's why the lighting sounds like an excellent idea :) my opinion
I think that if a beginner invests the price of this device in the fee of a good teacher, he will learn significantly more :-)
Playing the guitar is far from just plucking the right string at the right place on the fingerboard. With this, one will not learn the correct technique of the right hand and will not learn to create a tone.