Price: $1.99
Rating:

Kasey’s Guitar Jams for Kids: iPhone Written App Review

Reviewed by Valerie Lauer

Do your kids love to rock? Then you simply must check out the new Kasey’s Guitar Jams for Kids universal app for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. This app contains 17 original tracks, instructions designed to get your kids strumming and jamming along with them, and comes to us courtesy of Kellbell. If you’ve been looking for an app to bridge the gap between teaching your tyke to hold an axe and jamming to adult tunes, this app may be just what you’re looking for.

Features:

Kasey’s Guitar Jams for Kids features an extremely vibrant and bright user interface where the music is the star. After a brief introduction to what the app’s designed to do and a little info about the app’s creator, it’s on to the music.

Each track has several elements, including a simple set of lyrics and two different practice styles, one basic intro that uses a lot of open cords and simple rhythmic patterns, and a second set that builds on the first, introduces kids to power chords and opens up more practice.

The songs have quirky names like Funky Toes and Mom’s Favorite Rock T-Shirt, and there’s plenty of variety. To be clear, the Kasey’s Guitar Jams for Kids app will not teach your little one how to play guitar. Think of it more as an educational aid that can build on the basics from an instructor or parent. I think the app could easily be expanded to include some simple, intro information, like identifying the strings and explaining what frets are, which would seriously up this app’s value in my opinion.

Layout & Design:

Kasey's Guitar Jams for Kids

It’s hard to doc Kasey’s Guitar Jams for Kids iPhone app any points for style. This app is streamlined, easy to navigate, bright, interesting and perfect for kids. My only design complaint is that the play pages where kids can see the music staff and playing instructions doesn’t have the song lyrics. After looking at the app’s demo video, it looks like the lyrics used to be on this page but aren’t any more. Frankly, that confused me and the kiddos that I had trying the app out. Also, on the iPhone version, the play along track hides the music staff from the screen entirely, which is counter productive in my opinion.

Overall Value:

As I mentioned earlier, there are some ways this app could add to its intrinsic value.  It’s a beautiful, kid-friendly app, and spending just $1.99 on an app that’s a mobile music book with audio examples is a good buy in my opinion. It’s a nice app and it works well and this new price (app used to be $9.99), should give it wider market appeal.  More features and info would also take it up a notch.

Kasey's Guitar Jams for Kids

Kasey’s Guitar Jams for Kids iPhone app requires iOS 4.3 or later and is compatible with iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. A small expedite fee was paid by the developer to speed up the publication of this review.

The iPhone App Review’s rating: