How to learn the Smart Guitar of GarageBand for iPad?

Question

Anybody know what's the best way to learn the Smart Guitar feature of GarageBand for non-guitarist? Specifically in these areas:

• What note does each string play? (a screen reference that says "tap here and you'll hear note X" will help).
• When do you use the chord mode vs the pluck mode.
• How to make the best use of the auto-play mode.

Thanks.

Answer 1

Smart guitar in Garageband/iPad is great on the go, I'll try to point you in the right direction -

• The sideways guitar in 'Notes' mode is the same as a real guitar, from the bottom up EADGBE by string, but it depends on which fret you play. In chord mode, well, maybe a site like this would help you http://www.chordbook.com/guitarchords.php - it's basically just as though you're playing the right frets for each string by chord

• Chord mode is good if you want to figure out the approximate chords in a song or for rhythm, notes for more intricate/solo stuff

• autoplay should be fairly straightforwards, just means you don't have to pick strings, I'd say best used as rhythm

The app is very easy to get used to, just play with it!