Fender Play

Fender Play® is the complete learning app for guitar, bass and ukulele. Play your first song in minutes with easy, fun, bite-sized lessons, featuring your favorite songs. Start Your Free Trial Today and play songs and riffs in minutes. Learn with Easy Lessons for Beginners. Structured learning paths guide beginner players through the step-by-step basics - from chords to strumming to scales. Fender Play is available on iPhone, iPad, Android and in your web browser on a laptop or PC.

Read more: Best Online Guitar Lessons

What we love about Fender Play

Fender Play has a vast library of high quality instructor-led videos offering valuable support to those wishing to learn the guitar/bass/ukulele. The in-built, levelled lessons start with the basics of how to hold the guitar and related key terminology and leads you towards playing a large range of popular songs with good technique and accuracy. The integrated song library, organised by difficulty level allows the user to be able to play songs to suit their current playing ability.

The ‘Chord Challenge’ section allows the learner to develop their dexterity with changing between chords of their choice and the song feedback mode provides real-time feedback and scores to allow the user to track their progress. Practice mode is available for all songs in the library, allowing the learner to adjust the tempo of the playback speed and alter the levels of the metronome, guitar and other band parts so that they can play with increasing independence.

What skills does it improve?

Fender Play develops the leaners technical ability to play their instrument within the dedicated ‘Skills’ section. This section allows the student to choose a specific skill they would like to work on or explore exercises to support their stamina and dexterity. In the ‘Collections’ section, skills and songs are grouped together against genres or artists which allows the learner to explore a specific area of interest in detail. Fender Play develops physical guitar skills and aural learning as well as the players ability to read chord and tab notation through clear visuals, detailed explanations and real-time feedback for particular songs.

What age is it appropriate for?

Fender Play is most suitable for secondary school children/college, university students and adult learners.. It is aimed at beginners and designed for those who are looking to teach themselves the guitar/bass/ukulele with clear guidance so that they don’t give up!

Is Fender Play easy to use?

The Fender Play app/website is easy to understand and use. The menu is very straightforward to use for a practice session and has a clear design with quick access to the learners lesson path showing their progress and journey through the different levels, song library and skills sections. The song library has a clear grading next to each title to show the level of difficulty so it is easy to attempt songs at your current playing level.. Each of the songs comes with a tutorial lesson and practice mode to make access to and learning the song straightforward.

How will students benefit?

The Fender Play app is useful in helping provide students with clear, visually stimulating and interactive lessons that focus on specific aspects of playing. This could support work completed with a tutor and provide a recap of techniques learned as well as allowing the student to move forward in their own practice without having to wait for the next lesson. The wide range of songs in the regularly updated song library also allows the learner to rehearse chord changes and technical knowledge learned in the lessons in the context of different pieces. The real-time feedback for selected songs means that students can see their progress and make adjustments to their technique as necessary.

How will teachers benefit?

Fender Play will contribute to successful practice sessions between teacher led sessions. It provides motivation through the large song library by tracking the student’s progress, letting them know how many chords and techniques they have accomplished.

The inbuilt lessons allow students to revise techniques learned previously, useful for when the teacher is not present. Teachers can also use Fender Play in lessons to provide song backings for students to play along to. This could be hugely beneficial in freeing the teacher from playing along with the student and allowing them to focus on observing the students technique. From a lesson planning perspective the staged process of Fender Pay can help teachers chunk the learning with clear, effective explanations and demonstrations as well as excellent tab based play along resources for each song in the library.

How will parents benefit?

The Fender Play app is a useful way of either supporting home practice or directing the learner step by step through the guitar playing process. The range of songs in the library expand the learner’s playing through the scaffolded practice mode, enabling them to slow down the track and practice at their own pace. It allows parents to hear how the child's guitar part should sound and also how their playing

fits with the other band parts. This enables students to hear their playing within the context of the whole song. For parents who do not play an instrument, the apps ability to provide instant feedback is very beneficial.

We think Fender Play could improve on:

Fender Play is constantly developing content, with new video tutorials and songs added regularly. An excellent new service that the app is providing is the Feedback Mode for certain songs. This allows the user to play along with the track. Using the devices microphone a score and specific feedback on areas to revisit is provided. It would be useful if eventually, this mode could be made available for all the songs in the library.

How much does Fender Play cost?

Fender Play offers a 14-day free trial. Following this, access costs $9.99 per month.

Is Fender Play safe to use?

Yes. The application does require an account, name and email to start with but no other personal data is requested. There are no chat features and the app's data protection compliance is explained on the website.

Overall rating of the app:

I would highly recommend this app to anyone wanting to start learning guitar/bass/ukulele on either an electric or acoustic instrument. It is an app that supports self-directed learning, providing all the necessary tutorials to learn the related skills for different genres. The app is visually stimulating and engaging and the song library provides a large selection of notable guitar song repertoire as well as recently released music.

Fender Play is a motivational and comprehensive teaching tool to support self-learning and enhance home practice.