Gibson: Learn to Play Guitar

Ive had this app for like fifteen minutes and i already have to get premium if i wanna progress at all and im only on level two

There timing is bad still. I have to watch close to see that I’m getting better.

Just wasted $20! They tell you that you can play songs but it costs an extra $5 to play anything you like. YOUTUBE tutorials are free. There’s literally no need for this app. SAVE YOUR MONEY!

It seems to be a good video game style of learning if you can already play guitar, but it isn’t great for beginners. There’s no consistency between stages, suddenly you jump to something you have no clue how to do and the app is just saying do this now, then this, then this. No explanation of how. Then it is so difficult to navigate, like finding your way around a maze. And goodness help you if you lose your place, or go away for a few days and have to backtrack, or if you quit and later need to start again, you haven’t got a hope of finding your way. There’s a lot of content but it isn’t great badly organized and very frustrating for the beginner, completely sapping confidence.

You have to pay for like almost everything! How am I supposed to learn if I can’t take lessons!

The song list is a barren wasteland. I thought, “surely, with ten thousand songs and lessons I will be able to practice some reels and jigs.” The ad is misleading.

I see all these reviews about how much people like the app, but I don’t get it. Couldn’t get past the tuning page without killing the app and skipping it. I am not even 30 mins, and fully blocked by the “7-day trial”. What is the point of a 7-day trial when I can get past a few mins/few lessons. Why are you forcing screen rotation? Not allowing it to rotate as I need is severely hampering (the headphone cord goes the wrong direction and gets tangled with my guitar. I’ve been playing guitar for many years, so I selected “intermediate”. First lesson? Here’s how to make your first note: pluck the thinnest string at the first fret! Why ask if you are going to ignore it. I am all for these kinds of apps and I would gladly pay for it, but not with these basic UI/UX problems and certainly not when I am given a 7-day trial that blocks after 30 mins.

I have been trying for weeks to play whatever so I want from basic and melody so I can get better but the app won’t let me even though I have finished the lessons to be where I am. I do not want to move forward until I’m comfortable but it will not let me tap the song to play like it did my first week.

For some reason, the game still gives me points for hitting the note right without even playing a note. I’ve had to restart restart my phone close the app twice and it’s still the same.

If your app begs for reviews in the middle of doing what your app is supposed to do, then you get 1 star, regardless of how good the app is otherwise.

I’m not a fan of the game style learning. I was using another app like this a while back and realized that i was learning to watch a screen instead of listening to keep time. I’ll be bc stick with truefire and Justin. When I want to learn a song I’ll use songster.

I purchased a Gibson guitar subscription to learn how to play, initially signing up for what I believed was a single annual plan. After paying $129.99, I started the seven-day trial to evaluate the service. The very next day, I received an email from Gibson offering a “special” subscription for just $90.99. Grateful to stay within my budget, I accepted what appeared to be a better deal — and immediately canceled the original seven-day trial. What followed was a textbook example of deceptive and predatory billing practices. Despite canceling the trial right away, it refuses to be removed from my account, and Gibson is now insisting on billing me the full $129.99. Meanwhile, I was also charged the $90.99. I am now saddled with two separate annual subscriptions—totaling over $220—neither of which I can cancel or access properly. When I contacted Gibson directly, I was told they could do nothing. They’ve outsourced the service to some third-party company in Europe, and their hands are conveniently “tied” by contract. Despite my repeated emails to this mysterious European entity, I’ve received zero response. Gibson, a respected American brand, has effectively washed its hands of the entire customer service nightmare they created. This is outrageous. While the app itself may be solid (it currently holds a 4.8-star rating), the company’s predatory billing tactics and complete abdication of responsibility are disgraceful. Trapping customers in non-cancellable subscriptions through opaque overseas partners — even after they cancel a trial in good faith — is not just poor business, it’s deeply unethical. I’ve disputed the $90.99 charge with Apple Card, but fighting the original $129.99 is proving equally frustrating. At this point, I’ve been left with no choice but to abandon Gibson’s platform entirely and resort to free YouTube tutorials. Consider this a warning: Gibson’s guitar training app may look appealing, but their billing practices are a nightmare. Think twice before handing over your money.

Want to get strung along by a bunch of flashy BS? This is the app for you. This is like a budget airline with the nickel and diming, but worse. Buyer beware.

Being transparent right up front. I give it two stars for the reason being the price for a year subscription, not having good/reliable phone/data service the app requires for a smooth experience and not having had much availability to use the app as I had hoped for. In the last 10 months of having paid $139.09 for the year sub, I’ve probably spent less than 20hrs of use, maybe even less. That’s no fault to Gibson. I just wasn’t expecting such a chaotic turn of events in life shortly after buying a guitar and then the app. But the high price of the yearly cost and what very little time I’ve been able to spend enjoying the app, it leaves me feeling regrettable for paying for the app when I did. As well, the app does require a reliable data point. And where I had been living through the last ten months, My data service was awful only having 1 bar of signal. So the app would struggle loading videos and songs and practice material etc. Again, no fault to Gibson. But simply another reason I feel regrettable for paying as much as I did for the app and not being able to use it without connection issues when I would get the time to sit down and use the app. With that said, as far as the app itself. I feel like the app does bring a solid foundation to a beginner guitar player and up. The play along structure is well laid out and makes it easy to follow along and uses a good mix of switching patterns up as in once you start feeling good using a certain finger or or fret after a few similar measures, it switches it briefly using different frets or fingers then jumping right back to what you started feeling dialed in on, giving you a quick “are you sure you got it?” Type approach making it more likely you’ll retain the teachings. Not only does it focus on a beginner approach, it also has extra video material that shows you how to take care of your guitar. How to restring, tuning and so on. The song you get to learn along with are songs most of us actually know. Not just some weird song just to play along with which brings more excitement into learning the guitar. Gibson really is offering a wonderful app and I’d love to actually invest time into the app and feel as if I’m getting what I’ve paid for. My approach to this app being simply the price as I don’t have much of a disposable income sadly. But it’s what makes it a difficult choice if I want to renew my subscription come July or if I consider it a loss and use cheaper options or YT like many others. If you find yourself having plenty of time to invest with the app, I believe you’ll truly learn a great deal from this app. You’ll also want to make sure you have reliable internet service on your device to avoid load failures as this app relies heavily on a good stable network connection.

I love this app and use it all the time, but I’d really love to see a colorblind accessibility setting added. Some of the colors can be difficult to tell apart, and having a colorblind mode would make the experience even better and more accessible for everyone.

Good for beginners but needs more work for advanced. It jumps from super easy lessons to really hard ones with no rhyme or reason. The speeds are not very adjustable for practicing new licks. The slowest speed is faster than I’d like to learn a new complicated riff. They have completely given up on lessons and thrown everything into guides which are often really boring to play through. They don’t release by skill level so again some are too easy then it’ll jump to difficult. The amount of lessons for intermediate guitar players is really lacking

I want Jazz theory for advanced player. Only beginner lessons here.

The app is no longer worth the subscription fee after they got rid of all the great songs they used to have in the library. How to do you call yourself a guitar app when you remove AC/DC, Jimi Hendrix, Metallica, Alice and Chains, Cream, etc from the app? They say there “licensing challenges” which really means that they cheaped out decided to bank the subscription profits rather than pay the licensing fees. I call BS. The song library on the Fender app is much larger and going strong.

The app would be fine if the backing track aligned with the tracking. The app wants you to play notes about a half second before it fits the music. Terrible.

More and more, the focus for this app is on beginner and intermediate players. It has become very rare to get a lesson with an “Advanced” version, which is their terminology for an accurate song lesson. Instead, they provide simplified versions where the parts and solos sound barely like the original songs, and are watered down to something that a less experienced player can play. They have also completely gotten away from the lessons with actual video showing the teacher play the song, and only provide a short audio narration prior to the simplified part’s tablature being played through. In fact, many of the legacy video lessons with fantastic accurate lessons on great classics were removed at the beginning of the year. There’s just not much for me here anymore.

I have just updated the app and now all the lessons are gone those were the main reason for me paying the subscription don’t get me wrong it’s a great app but what the h*ll man all my progress has disappeared into the void I’m gonna need my money back if this isn’t fixed

I am unable to log in to the iPadOS version of this app, stating there is no user associated with my account. Although, I am able to log in on my iPhone and MacBook no problem.

having to sign in after every update is a nuisance. slow learners don’t make it thru all lessons; only fast learners with years of guitar playing experience will finish course. we all pay the same, of course.

The premium subscription for 19.99 is misleading when you can’t even access the second lesson without being up charged 4.99.

This app seemed promising but after 3 weeks of daily lessons, I’m no better at guitar. I also did not like the “augmented reality” piece, which involves playing out of key notes in the name of an easier learning curve. This app is really well built and functions great! I just did not take to the teaching method. Ultimately, I’m glad I did not buy the annual subscription.