Guitar tablature is a great, easy way to learn new songs, and most guitar players use it as their primary way of learning new material. Thanks to sites like ultimate-guitar.com, guitaretab.com, and 911tabs.com, it’s easy to go on your computer and find a tab to nearly any song with just a few clicks. But what about guitar tab apps for iOS or Android?
As many of us know, the popular tablature websites often don’t lay out correctly on your phone or tablet. Also, it’s harder to search, and the advertising pop-ups from the website can mess with the display.
As it turns out, guitar tab apps solve some of these basic problems, as well as introducing a lot of innovations to make using guitar tab more effective, intuitive, and fun.
Here are nineguitar tab apps for iOS and Android guaranteed to make your life easier and your guitar playing better.
About this particular list of the best guitar tabapps:
Rankings are determined by Reviews, Number of Downloads, Usability, and Aesthetics.
This list leans covers boththe iOS world and Android world.
By:Ultimate Guitar |website Platform: iOS and Android
This is the #1 guitar tab app in Apple’s app store, and in Google Play. The ultimateguitar.com website is also a super popular choice for finding tabs directly. It benefits from a huge base of users who upload, correct, and comment on tabs. A really amazing community. The app itself is well made, and comes with a variety of In App Purchase upgrades. The “Tab Pro” upgrade is the second most popular guitar tab app in the Apple Store. Interestingly, Ultimate Guitar’s app strategy allows you to either a) buy the Ultimate Guitar Tabs app and then upgrade to Pro, or b) just buy Pro to begin with. Pro features include: Scrolling playback, audio track accompaniment, tempo control, and more.
Hugely popular Android-only guitar tab app. Provides access to 500,000+ tabs. The app does not provide Songsterr-style scrolling as you play. It functions more like the free version ofUltimate Guitar, providing an extensive library of tabs in an easy-to-search format. And you can’t beat the price!
By: Arobas Music |website Platform: iOS and Android
Guitar Pro is a well-designed tab learning app, similar to Songsterr. Tab is played in real time, moving across the screen in sync with music. Traditional notation is also shown, which is a unique feature in this list. Downsides? A bit pricy, although it’s much less pricy than subscription-based Songsterr. They also don’t indicate the size of their catalog, which makes me wonder.
By: Guitar Tabs LLC |website Platform: iOS and Android
Similar to the Ultimate Guitar Pro upgrade,Songsterr takes guitar tab to another level. Rather than simply presenting plain tablature, Songsterr plays the tablature in tempo. The music scans across the screen while the song is played, allowing the player to play along in real time. Common requests from users are for the ability to slow the tempo, which seems an obvious need. Also has a huge selection of 500,000 tabs. Interestingly, they note that all tabs are accurate and there’s only one version of each song (a not-so-subtle dig at the ultimate-guitar.com way of presenting lots of tab versions). Apricy $4.99/month subscription for access to all the tab. And you need the subscription because the Free version isn’t much help, only giving access to 15-second preview clips.
Chordify is massively popular, but for chords rather than tablature. It’s worth mentioning in this article because they have a 4.5million song library to get you started. The free version gives you access to all of these, along with YouTube/Souncloud playalong ability, and a personal library.
The paid version includes many other features, notably the ability to slow down a song to play along, loop difficult sections, and work offline.
6. Tab Toolkit
By:agilepartners |website Platform: iOS and Android
Tab Toolkit is an app that focuses specifically on tabs. The app has a library of tabs, and you can also create your own tabs and edit existing ones. The app is not free but has a one-time purchase fee.
GuitarTapp PRO has a vast library of tabs with a focus on acoustic songs. The app also has a feature that lets you customize the tab layout for better readability. The app is not free, but there is a free version with limited features.
Fender Play is a subscription-based app that includes both tabs and video lessons. The app has a variety of lessons from beginner to advanced, and you can also learn specific songs. The app offers a free trial, but you’ll need to pay for a subscription to access all features.
Like Fender Play, JamPlay is a subscription-based app that includes tabs and video lessons. The app has a community aspect where you can connect with other guitar players and instructors. The app offers a free trial, but you’ll need to pay for a subscription to access all features.
Guitar – Chords, Tabs & Games is one of the most realistic guitar simulator apps featuring a user-friendly interface and an awesome sound quality. All sounds have been recorded from live guitar. With the help of Real Guitar you can easily strum, pluck, and strike the strings to play the chords of any complexity and figure out your favourite tunes or make up your own. You can learn and master new chords and jingles with Real Guitar, as well.
GuitarTab bills itself as a ‘tab viewer’. It provides access to 500,00+ tabs, similar to Guitar Chords and Tabs, but also can display Guitar Pro files (if you happen to have those). It also promises to provide a scrolling tab feature soon.
Guitar Tabs & Chords Player is a free app with a huge catalogue of more than a million tabs and chords to learn to play all your favorite songs. Key features are – play back loop, high quality transcription, realistic songs player, tempo control and so on.
Conclusion
No matter your preferred style of music or skill level, there’s a guitar tablature app out there for you. Whether it’s for practice, inspiration, or just for fun, these apps allow you to rock out from anywhere. So download a few and start playing!
How’s your experience with these guitar tab apps? Do you have one to add?
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Looking for more info on fingerstyle guitar tabs beyond just apps? See this article.
Looking for a great list of top fingerstyle songs to get started with? See this article.
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Comments
Guitar Gravitas
Hi,
Just wanted to let you know we just released a very cool app for guitar players of all levels. It is called Guitar Gravitas (http://www.guitargravitas.com). The current version supports iPad and the universal version with iPhone support is coming soon with an update.
Anyone out there got any experience in using the first 3 apps for hands-free gigging? Songsterr looks perfect – I hate having to vet different tab versions for wrong chords, and I like that the artists get paid when you buy it – but they don’t have a transpose feature. And that’s a huge hole. Anyone know if they plan to add one?
Otherwise it’s down to Ultimate Guitar Tabs vs Guitar Chords and Tabs. I’m dubious about whether UGT will be worth the money when I have to vet different versions for mistakes anyway. If it can’t do that for me, what CAN it do that Guitar Chords and Tabs can’t do for free?
I just had a look at Guitar Chords and Tabs on an Android Tablet – it has basic autoscroll with adjustable speed (at any zoom level and in portrait or landscape mode), one-touch transpose, and offline access to favourited tabs (and it will even remember the zoom level, transposition and autoscroll speed settings you had). For $1.96 you then get no ads, syncing between multiple devices, the ability to categorise, sort and search favourites, and the ability to create notes on each song (like “put capo on 4th fret”, or “play Bm instead of D”). And a feature listed as “ability to stop auto scrolling when not playing” – anyone know what that means?
Anyway, I think we have a winner – unless anyone out there has any bad experiences to report when using it for gigs?
Hey great article. Another great app that’s totally free is http://keeping-tabs.io . It allows guitar players to track their progress, setup and track goals/progress over time as well as use onscreen tools to run through practice sessions. I would love to hear your review of it if you get a chance to check it out!
Hi, great article! Here´s another great app with a totally new approach to master scales and jamming, name MusiClock http://mymusiclock.com
MusiClock is a huge help for beginner musicians and guitarists who struggle with music theory, scales and soloing. The app has various backing tracks and scale charts from every fret and key, it really makes avoiding bum notes dead easy!
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Christophe Damour
Hi, yes Nitarsh, this list is a bit outdated. There isn’t even Jellynote in it, even though, IMO, it is the best currently. Largest catalogue, practice mode and learning mode that makes you feel like you’re playing Guitar Hero while learning a real instrument, offline songbooks and synchronized videos. All of that for 9,99$ per month. There is even a free version with everything that you need to play the music (btw the catalogue is free too!), like metronome and tuner.
And if you don’t want to include this App Taylor Smith, then you can just test it here : https://goo.gl/pDqof1
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Nitarsh
Hi, Nice list, but seems outdated. Like for example Songsterr has gone to a one time purchase model since then. Could you please update it?
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Taylor Smith
Has it? On the iTunes Store, it’s still 5/month. Can you give us a link?
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Nitarsh
I meant on Google play.
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guitarjournal
Hey Nitarsh, thanks good point! Songsterr entry is updated.
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