Customer Reviews

Fisher-Price I Can Play Guitar System (blue)

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This is a great product that stands apart from the other kids guitars in the marketplace right now in that it's a real learning product...and it's also FUN! For parents, it's very easy to get to work with a television, and has volume control.

Features on the included cartridge include a song play mode, which teachers you to play along to well known songs, and the finger positions learned will translate to a real guitar. The song mode is broken down into three separate levels, and allows younger children to just strum along to the music too.

After the song mode, the cartridge features a game and tutorial that will help you get a feel for the system and is fun. Another feature on the cartridge is the 'jam session' mode, where you can play anything you like on the guitar to a background track. Also, you can unplug the guitar from the TV and let your rockstar play on their own.

In a market currently saturated with musical toys, this stands head and shoulders above them all. Not only is it a whole lot of fun and easy to set up, but it provides real learning that can later be translated to a real guitar. Highly recommended!!

My 7 year old son got this for his birthday. It is definitely a hit. He's been playing with it constantly. However, it's a little beyond his ability, especially the fret based games. My 11-year daughter likes it to and has done much better with it.

Initially my son had problems getting it to work that required parental intervention. It turns out the strings are a bit anal about where they are strummed. You have to strum it on the right side of the strings. Any other location will only intermittently register during the game. The other issue is that the video cable is placed in a very bad location. It is located right below the strings and is knocked out regularly when playing the game. Neither of these issues is a killer problem, but was very frustrating initially.

I also bought this locally at a large chain and paid about twice what the Amazon price is. Makes me wish I'd checked with Amazon first.

[Update] My son received several cartridges for Christmas. He's tried several and it's clear that the real educational value is in the additional cartridges. The Hot Wheels cartridge focuses on scales; the Nashville cartridge focuses on cords. I'm sure other cartridges focus on other skills. So be sure to pick up a couple of additional cartridges.

[Update 2] We recently got a copy of Guitar Hero for our Wii. Guitar Hero is a rhythm game -it makes no attempt to teach music skills (other than keeping the beat). It's mostly about synchronizing the (fret) button presses and strum rhythms with the music on the screen. That definitely is more fun and gives you more of an immediate feeling of accomplishment. However, it doesn't give you skills that are useful to playing a guitar. That's the biggest difference between Guitar Hero and "I can play guitar system". The Fisher-Price toy tries to teach skills to play a real guitar. So, yes it's more complicated and not necessarily as fun. But that's not the point.

I have been playing electric bass for 20+years. I learned the basics on guitar with quite a bit of formal training (bass, guitar, piano). I bought this product for my 6 year old son. He really enjoyed decorating his "Axe" with the stickers that came with it. I think they did a good job with the ergonomics of a 6 year old guitar. The issues:
1) The cable that connects between the guitar and the TV requires a lot of strength to seat properly.
2) The sensors that sense the strum are not very sensitive and must be strummed very hard. So a big -1 on teaching bad strumming habits that will need to be unlearned later on down the road.
3) The sensors are not able to pick up anything faster than a quarter note. Don't expect the kids to get the "funk" feel of a pickup note.
4) The fretting exercises are difficult. They need to focus on 1 string at a time and build up. Apparently they do not understand guitar instruction. After playing Bach Preludes, I struggle to get 75% of the notes with practice. And then factor in the bad sensors and it is frustrating and nearly impossible. My son will not do the fretting stuff. He hands me the guitar and says its too hard.
5) The music notation is backwards from what trained musician's would expect (lowest pitched notes are highest on the screen). So experienced musicians will have a tough time reading the notes. And if the young player gets to a high level of site reading proficiency with this toy, he will need to relearn.
So at the end of the day, it is a TOY. Its educational value is not so great. With the some modifications to the hardware design (sensors) and some improvment on the games (fret hand 1 string at a time build up to all six strings), this could be a good product. I get the impression this was not well thought out by someone with a musical background.

My grandson received this for his birthday, and loves it. He is 7, and still has a ways to go yet, but it holds his interest, and he enjoys it. I would recomend this toy.

My five-year-old is addicted to Guitar Hero, so when I saw this product, I thought it would be a great way to wean him off that game and onto something that would actually help him learn. Unforutnately, the product doesn't live up to my expectations. The sound and "fun" quality just aren't there. The guitar isn't responsive enough, so he has to strum very hard to get it to recognize any input. The game doesn't do enough to teach how to use the guitar, and all the buttons and colors become very confusing. But this is for six years and up, you say? Well, I have just as much trouble as he does with it.

Guitar Hero has already set the bar high for sound quality and graphics. Coming in late to the game, even if it is intended for a younger audience, this product should be of a little higher quality. The benefit was supposed to be that it teaches, but it does a very poor job of that as well.

Bottom line: this product just isn't very much fun.

This was a gift for a 5-yr-old boy that loves to watch his daddy play Guitar Hero. Daddy set it up and was having a great deal of difficulty getting the guitar to work - until he handed it over to our son - who figured it out. It was a sad moment at our house Christmas Day. Son isn't very confident with his fingering and will ask for help, but the strumming he has down cold and never misses. You can adjust the speed and that's great for him. He slows it down to gain confidence. It does take 4 C batteries and pretty much devours them.

I purchased this for Christmas for my soon to be 6 year old, along with one extra game. It's really difficult for his age and I know someday if he is still interested in playing a guitar this toy will definately give him the ability to learn to actually play a REAL guitar. However for now I'm thankful that it has a "guitar" mode as well as the TV mode, because that's all he's interested in doing with it. It does sound really cool when it's not connected to the TV for a toy, I was expecting a lot less. I guess I view it as a future investment in his music talent, with the hopes that as he matures a bit he will have a complete understanding of what's going on. That factor considered, it was worth the $55.00 I paid for it.

I ordered this for my 3 year old nephew for Xmas. I was excited because I play guitar and he shows interest in music, so I thought this was a great way for him to learn. When he opened it this morning and I put the batteries in, everything was cool. This thing actually plays real chords and he loves to wear it and strum the strings.

But when I tried to plug it into the TV, the cord to connect the guitar to the tv was damaged. So we can't play with that part of the toy, which I was looking forward to.

I hate to deal with returns and what not, so I will most likely look for a cord replacement somewhere, instead of dealing with a whole product return.

As far as I can tell, the guitar itself is a lot of fun. I've picked it up and played it a few times already. And he's been picking it up a lot throughout the day. He really likes it. And that makes me happy. When he's not playing it, I'll probably be playing it myself. :)

Unfortunately, the guitar I ordered off Amazon was DOA, so I took it to a local Walmart and they traded me for a working one.

As for the guitar itself, I'm not very impressed.

Pros:
1) It teaches youngsters how to hold the guitar.

2) A few games teach some basic chords, which can help kids learn chord shapes.

Cons:

1)Strumming the strings produces a horribly grating sound, which, when played by my son while I'm trying to read a book, breaks my concentration every time. It's a horrible sound.

2) The fret buttons, though made smaller for little hands, are still a little too close for comfort for my 5-year-old. The A major chord played in the first position doesn't have enough room for him to hold all three buttons down.

3) It doesn't teach kids how to read notes, or even what they are. I only saw mention of notes a few times, and it wasn't described what they were, or what they meant. I find it strange to mention the notes so passively, yet not describe their purpose, especially on something that teaches how to play guitar.

4) The stings don't always recognize when they are being strummed. Sometimes you can barely touch them and they'll play, other times, you can strum really hard and it won't recognize that you've strummed.

5) A bit of an extension of my previous statement: I tried to play an arpeggio of the C Major scale in the first position and its response to my fretting and strumming was awful. I think the problem resides in the strings recognition; they don't always register when they are strummed. It's not very responsive.

Overall:

I wasn't very happy with this guitar system. I think the only benefits are that it teaches kids how to hold a guitar, and give the overall 'feel' of what it's like to play a guitar, and only somewhat. I think this product was a great idea with bad follow-through. The mechanics behind the guitar need to be better tuned so that it's more responsive and more accurate. Although this is the "Guitar Wizard Method", the few games we have completely leave out things like what notes are, what a C Major scale is in the first, second, third position, etc. It doesn't teach guitar shapes at all, save a few chords one two games we have. Guitar shapes are a fundamental part of playing guitar. It would appear that the only thing this game _really_ teaches is what it feels like to hold a guitar. Maybe I was expecting too much from this guitar? I think the software for this guitar could be far more robust and teach much more than songs. I recommend letting a kid play this guitar for a few months, then if he/she likes it enough, get them a real guitar and pay for some lessons.

I bought this guitar last Christmas for my daughter because she wanted a guitar. I wasn't about to buy a new guitar and lessons because I wasn't for sure of her interest level so we bought I can play Guitar. My daughter says that it isn't as fun as Guitar Hero, but she says that she actually knows the cords to play. She's still playing it after a year and is pretty good at three finger combinations. The product is good. The graphics are lacking for the technology we have, but it is a learning tool. Unlike Guitar Hero she is actually learning real cords, so that is better the video game. I would recommend this to other people but keep in mind that this will unlikely please a child who is dying to have guitar hero.