Nightly Build Audio · Fretscore for iPhone

Fretscore: classical guitar sight reading that listens

Free sight-reading practice for classical guitar students, on iPhone. Fretscore shows the music on a real five-line staff, listens through your iPhone’s microphone and checks the pitch and timing of every note you play, so reading music becomes a daily habit instead of a weak spot. Real études and pieces, a fretboard trainer, rhythm drills and a tuner come with it, and your progress is kept on your iPhone.

Something not working, or not sure how to do something? The answers to the common questions are below. If yours isn’t, write to us at contact@nightlybuildaudio.com with your iPhone model, its iOS version and Fretscore’s version, and we’ll reply as soon as we can.

Getting started

  • Any guitar works: Fretscore checks only pitch and timing, so a classical, acoustic or electric guitar (unplugged, near the phone) is fine, and so is any instrument that plays clear pitches. Nothing has to be recorded or trained first.
  • The microphone: Fretscore asks for it the first time you play. If you said no, allow it in Settings › Privacy & Security › Microphone › Fretscore.
  • Where to start: today’s workout on the home screen takes about fifteen minutes: a warm-up, a round on the fretboard, a rhythm drill, a new piece to read at sight, a few bars to polish and a duet. Or open the Songbook, pick a piece and tap Start.

Sight reading for exams and auditions

  • A new piece every time: Sight reading › Read a new piece writes one at your level, ten levels from three notes on a string to a melody over a bass. Read it once through in time: two good readings in a row move you up, two poor ones back.
  • Wait or Tempo: Wait waits for the right notes before moving on, so you can read at your own pace; Tempo counts you in and keeps the beat, as an examiner would.
  • For students: graded guitar exams and many university auditions include a sight-reading test. A few minutes of reading every day, at a level just above comfortable, is the surest way to prepare.

The fretboard trainer

  • Find the note: it asks for a note on a string (F♯ on the 4th string, say) and times how quickly you find it. Answer by playing it, or by tapping the neck (Answer by: Tap it).
  • Nine ranges: it starts with a few notes on the top strings and widens to every fret up to the twelfth as you find them quickly. The neck shows as a heatmap of how quickly each place is found.

Practising pieces

  • The repertoire: études by Carcassi and Mertz, Bach’s Prelude BWV 999 and two movements of the Lute Suite BWV 997, Satie’s Gymnopédies arranged for guitar, Petzold’s Minuet in G, Horetzky’s airs and more, from public-domain editions. Songbook › Import MusicXML… adds your own pieces (uncompressed MusicXML).
  • The hard bars: tap a bar on the staff to practise it on its own, tap another to make a range, and Loop goes round it. Automatic tempo starts slower and speeds up after every clean pass. Listen plays any passage as it should sound.
  • Duets: take the melody or the bass while the app plays the rest.
  • Hints and views: hints show each note’s name, string and fret; the View menu shows one scrolling line, the line with the whole page below it, or the whole page.
  • Notes not heard? Check the microphone permission and that no other app is using it, play a little closer to the phone, and keep the room quiet. A note that rings on while you play the next is never held against you.

Rhythm

  • Eighteen drills, from whole notes to sixteenths, triplets, three-four and six-eight time. Rhythm mode judges timing only: a ruler shows where each note landed against the beat, in milliseconds, and whether you rush or drag.
  • The metronome (Settings) clicks the count-in, or through the whole run with headphones.

The tuner

The tuning fork on the home and practice screens opens it. It names the string it hears and how far off it is, on a needle and a strobe that stands still in tune, and ticks each string once it settles: standard tuning or drop D, or any note, with A anywhere from 430 to 446 Hz.

Game Center

Leaderboards for the week’s practice, the quickest fretboard rounds, the sight-reading level and the longest streak, and the badges as achievements, if you’re signed in to Game Center. Only those numbers are shared. Settings › Game Center turns it off.

Free, all of it

Every piece, trainer and tool is free. No ads, no account, no subscription.

Your progress

  • Everything stays on your iPhone: the practice history, levels, streaks and badges, and the pieces you import, are kept in the app and in your device’s backups. Deleting the app deletes them.
  • A daily reminder can be turned on in Settings, with the daily goal.

Privacy

Fretscore collects nothing and records nothing: the microphone is analysed on your iPhone as you play. The full policy: Fretscore privacy policy.