Learning Guitar with a Light Up Fretboard? Trying Out and Reviewing Fret Zealot

face on this day that ends and why

i’m here with something a little bit

different than usual though not

completely out of my wheelhouse i’ve

talked before about different tools for

learning how to play guitar and growing

after all i do feel like if you’re not

getting better you’re probably getting

worse and that brings me to fret zealot

i’ve never seen anything like fret

zealot on guitar but if you’ve ever seen

those little casio keyboards where the

keys light up when you’re supposed to

play them this is a very similar uh kind

of deal

except it’s on a fretboard so fredzel

sent me this guitar with this already

installed but i’ll show you the

packaging at the end of the video

because i know that’s you want to get

into it but essentially it’s an adhesive

that sticks to your fretboard there’s

this little

clip at the top you just use a capo

and then there’s a little box that’s

rechargeable the battery seems to last a

pretty pretty long while um but just a

little um usb

plug

so it’s easy to find to find a charge

and it just kind of works it lights up

it’s really neat uh that somebody

actually went in

looked at a bunch of these tutorial

videos that they have um on their

website and programmed this to light up

then that gets sent

via my tablet iphone computer bluetooth

via bluetooth into the fretboard it’s

really neat

the one thing i do want to say is

if you want to play out

this will have to stay on the guitar

it’s not made to be taken off and

reapplied so i recommend getting maybe a

more affordable entry-level guitar

um

and putting it on putting this on that

versus putting it on one of your nicer

guitars and then just taking it off for

a show

but let’s get into it let’s take a look

at the website hey i’m down here now uh

this is the website there are you can’t

quite see them right now there are some

sorting options let me move that over

so you can sort by

style decade difficulty

and there are a bunch of songs there

also a bunch of courses uh 30-day

beginner challenge theory

player studies

uh like for eric clapton and i believe

there are some specific song ones

unlocking cage beginner blues there’s a

lot of stuff in here a lot of

educational stuff beyond

just the songs there are many different

instructors which is really cool because

then you can if you don’t like one

instructor if that style doesn’t doesn’t

resonate with you it’s really easy to

find another one

so um

let’s take a look at the songs and let’s

pick a song to learn together

though i’ll probably to fast forward

through a lot of the song stuff i hope

you understand i see purple rain in

there and i’m not going to touch it

because i’m sure that he and i play it

differently

and that’s just going to

mess with me let’s start with difficulty

i’m going to go with intermediate i

don’t really want to go with beginner or

basic because i feel like that might be

boring for me

um

let’s go with watermelon sugar by harry

styles

so as you can see i’m not connected so i

just have to hit connect over here

go to paired

parrot i’m connected i did have a little

bit of trouble with that earlier today

but my i hadn’t been i used it a little

bit like a week so i just had to go and

remove

like forget the device and then

relearn the device so this is what it

looks like you see the tags that applies

to it

um

you can see as after i hit play you can

change the speeds

which is helpful on some of the

tutorials not necessarily the your

guitar academy ones which i’m pretty

sure this is

and you can save them you can share them

have some information down there

it’s pretty neat i’m going to go ahead

and make my screen big again because

what you want to see i’m sure is the

guitar this is just like watching a

youtube video

the only thing i don’t like about it is

that you can’t hit the um

the arrow keys to go forwards

and backwards five or ten seconds

i would prefer being able to do that

but that’s a very minor inconvenience so

let’s get into this watermelon sugar

study mark from your guitar academy here

is haircut today we’re going to be

looking at a very popular track called

watermelon sugar by harry styles so the

main part of this track is the funky

rhythm that is going on throughout the

majority of the track

sliding up

look at that

nice it’s amazing somebody literally

went through and time stamped every

single note that these instructors play

and programmed it into this that stuff

that’s all the chords yeah it’s a lot of

work first chord that we’re going to be

catching

is a d minor seven

so

all of the the lights seem to be um

for different fingers

so

this the blue is a bar

and then i believe green

is

going to be the

middle finger

and then

it looks like my ring finger is going to

be yellow

to catch this chord what we’re going to

want to do is bar the fifth fret up

until the a string

put our ring finger our third finger on

the seventh fret of the d string

keep that bar open well not open but

keep the boy down on the g string on the

fifth fret and then we’re going to put

our second finger our middle finger it’s

really neat sixth fret of the b string

[Music]

this is what uh gives us a d minor seven

chord

you might be more familiar with this

shape which is just a d minor chord in a

minor shape position and then purple is

pinky so not only does it show you like

where everything is there’s an

indication of which finger

you should

you’re recommended to use and you might

see a little red dot up here that means

you’re not playing that one

pretty intuitive

i do want to say that this is much more

visual than just looking at an

instructor’s fingers in a youtube video

i haven’t really thought about that

before because i’m so used to

just looking at somebody’s fingers like

while they’re playing and like

thinking about it

um

yeah just to be able to see where

everything gets placed though

especially for beginners i can imagine

that’s extremely helpful

ring finger

whoever played the guitar part on this

didn’t like their pinky i guess

i’m kidding

[Music]

[Music]

big

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let’s move on to putting this funky

rhythmic groove into it to make the song

come to life i like that because

this is very easy on its own i mean it’s

i think for any intermediate player this

is going to be pretty easy

and this is kind of where the fret

zealot

software is a little bit less helpful

and more reliant on the teaching um and

this is kind of why

i say that some teachers just out

perform others or some classes just out

perform others

because some will actually walk you

through

beyond like hear some notes have fun so

[Music]

not too hard let’s get forward to some

lead stuff i’m pretty sure he does get

some lead stuff funky rhythm um so good

here this is all based within the same

key of the track so this d minor this d

minor field

so we’re going to start on this fifth

fret of the a which is

we’re going to play

five the the frets that we’re using here

are five 8 with your pinky

with your third finger

and that’s where the lighting up

was helpful because

naturally you see a note and i just

put my ring finger down but then i

realized it was blue

it was not supposed to be it’s supposed

to be the first finger

[Music]

again

we’re going to repeat that exact phrase

again

i will say it’s not it’s just staying

lit up for all three of those notes at

the same time when you’re playing them

one at a time and some some of these

lessons seem to be programmed

differently

we get this little pattern here

[Music]

so that’s all you need for that riff but

let me play uh the riff through one more

time just give you a sense of how it

falls together

[Music]

hey

nice

[Music]

hi

that’s actually pretty cool

i liked it i liked learning that that

way

[Music]

do

[Music]

[Music]

the other thing that would be helpful is

that at the very end or there’s another

option to literally loop just the song

with everything lighting up i think that

would be really helpful

um but let’s take a look and try to find

a different instructor maybe something

lead

let’s see

this is obviously a different instructor

and this is a four minute

lesson so um

that’s that could be a good one to do

and the page looks very different

doesn’t it huh

there’s a tab on this one um i wonder if

i’ll like that okay

let’s um see what happens

[Music]

what i literally don’t understand is

it’s lighting up red all the way down

this time and the other times it was lit

up only

at the top

so that’s different

you can’t see the tab on the screen at

this point it’s nice and slow with the

tab

if you make these kinds of videos i am

imploring you please stop putting the

tab at the very bottom

um whenever it gets paused the tab just

gets completely covered up please put it

at the top

because that never gets covered up from

from pauses though i have it lit up so

it’s not as big of a deal and as i pause

it it’s paused on exactly the thing i

was on so

and a chord

[Music]

[Music]

ah

[Music]

so that didn’t light up consistently

that i don’t know why maybe it was

supposed to

maybe i have a dead led or something

okay

i just want i’m not sure why you’d play

it that way

[Music]

so he’s having it as 2 4 2 5

i

yeah

this is the thing where i i’m really

saying

mileage is going to vary

by the instructor by their style by how

it’s all getting lit up like this is all

lit up all up and down which you know is

a very strong visual indication um

but yeah it’s

different than the last time and i think

that’s just going to be kind of common

i’m going to come back in just a second

for my final thoughts um

stay tuned

welcome back yes i have changed clothes

this is actually the next day

um

it’s a long story but

i’m here because i want to give my final

thoughts but first i want to show you

the fret zealot packaging and kind of

what it looks like

this is the packaging yes it’s shaped

like a fretboard it has a fretboard on

it

you open that up

very pretty

nice nod to the colors i think

personally

you get some

links to instructions including how to

install it

and that’s what it looks like as you can

see it doesn’t take up the whole fret

board you might have been able to tell

that from the previous video after all

you could still see the inlays on the

guitar

and you just feel and stick it on

there is

some stuff that i am making a mess of

but you have your cable in here you have

your little battery pack and bluetooth

connector in here

and then there’s the capo that all comes

with and uh looks like something else

that i

i’m just not quite sure what it is so

that’s the gist of what it looks like

again it’s not made to go

on multiple guitars um it’s kind of a

one and done thing which you know i i

think it’s fine you probably just have

your practice guitar or if it’s your

only guitar you know it wouldn’t

it’s so unintrusive

that it wouldn’t be a big deal to play

it live um

at all i wouldn’t i personally wouldn’t

mind it i could i couldn’t even feel it

truth be told but let’s talk about how i

i felt about learning guitar

via

lights

i was a skeptic i i really was i i

wasn’t sure how helpful that would be

but then it kind of clicked while i was

going through it like if you’re a

beginner

those lights are

fantastic because like looking at

numbers

on a tab or looking at someone’s hands

on a screen or listening to the

instructions

that’s a lot to take in and it takes a

while to get to that level of comfort

where you’re able to just hear those

instructions or see them on a page and

apply them

to

your own playing so that’s actually

great

i’m i’m really impressed by it if you

are a beginner or even up to like the

intermediate level i think it could be

really really helpful for you and if

you’re afraid of like installing this on

your own guitar or you want a very

affordable option to have this already

installed um they sell fret zealot

pre-installed on a litany of guitars

there are a lot of yamaha pacificas on

here

some epiphone sgs some epiphone les

pauls

and some of these like the epiphone sg

special ve

it’s only the guitar comes down to like

200 bucks so that’s about the fair price

for that guitar anyway so they’re not

really up charging you for the

installation at the same time you’re not

really saving money from like some

warehouse deal but the convenience of

having it already installed that’s gonna

save you a little bit of time and a

little bit of stress if you’re just not

sure

about like sticking it on yourself i’ve

been assured it’s easy but again i

didn’t do it

so there you go

as for the courses

i i feel like a broken record at this

point

uh it’s it’s a li the songs i should say

um

the instructors are very different but

there are instructors on there that i

like

their

instruction

anyway like for example if we go to

country

under genre

which i look up a lot of country songs

on youtube it looks like there’s this

stuff from the the monarch cast that’s a

new show on fox your guitar academy

uh six string country i’ve taken a lot

of lessons from them online

it’s really cool that you get to

enjoy their content on this via fret

zealot so i this is all like a paid

subscription to do this part um

but there is a lot

a lot of stuff here i don’t have a count

on the songs i’m assuming they’re adding

them

all the time

i don’t think you’re going to struggle

to find

songs that you’re going to enjoy playing

um songs are going to impress people and

your family at

gatherings campfires or even in a cover

band

resources like this are great for cover

bands i do a lot of cover songs myself

and i’m a big fan of tools like this

because you know people say oh you

should learn by ear and yeah you know

what you should you should learn by ear

when you have time

if you have

again like a month to learn 15 to 25

songs

you don’t have a lot of time so you’re

really going to rely heavily

on tools like fret zealot

again i was a skeptic

but i

i think it’s a really cool tool and i

would recommend it to people who are

learning guitar there are you know

obviously a lot of other options out

there for learning this is visual in a

way i haven’t seen before

and it was a lot more intuitive than i

expected

and just like the the technology of it

quite impressive so um hats off to

fretzellet

again they did sponsor this video so

take without what you will i’m not

afraid to give honest opinions of things

again i you know there are a few things

i think they could improve on i think

the instructors uh vary a little bit

i you know their sorting can be a little

bit fickle and i’m aware they are aware

and they’re working on that um

so what else

is kind of weird about it oh yeah if you

have i had some connectivity problems

for my computer i think that’s just part

of my computer i’m using a desktop with

a usb bluetooth adapter in it and that’s

kind of buggy i was having trouble

getting it to connect to the website but

i just disconnected it from the computer

entirely reconnected it to the computer

and then it worked again so um it was

just basic turn it off and turn it back

on kind of fix

so there you go yeah so for all of you

out there thanks for watching thanks for

understanding until next time my name is

emily goodbye