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Solo vs Gitori: Which Fretboard Trainer Should You Use?
Guitar

Solo vs Gitori: Which Fretboard Trainer Should You Use?

By Udit M.·

The short answer: Solo, built by guitarists Tom Quayle and David Beebee, is a serious tool for players who already know their way around the neck and want to drill intervallic function against roots, chords, and scales. Gitori is built for the whole path there: it starts at fretboard notes and walks you into scale degrees, triads, chords, and arpeggios, free to start in your browser.

What Solo does well

Solo isn't a beginner note-finder — it's built for players ready to think in function, not shapes:

  • Four dedicated trainers. Note, Interval, Changes, and Scale trainers each isolate one skill: naming notes, hearing interval shapes, outlining chord changes by ear, and navigating scales by intervallic function instead of memorized boxes.
  • 100+ chord progressions in the Changes Trainer, plus single-chord exercises, so you practice outlining real changes, not just static scales.
  • 50+ scales and modes in the Scale Trainer, with reverse, randomize, and transpose options to keep drills from going stale.
  • Real audio listening. Solo hears what you actually play and won't advance until you find the correct note by its intervallic function.
  • Wide tuning support, including 6- and 7-string guitar (standard and fourths tuning) and 4/5-string bass.

Solo also sells a companion "Ultimate Fretboard Visualisation Course" (a separate purchase) built around Quayle and Beebee's two-point visualization system.

Where Gitori differs

Solo assumes you're already fluent enough to think in intervallic function. Gitori is built to get you there in the first place:

  • A sequenced curriculum. Gitori's courses start at fretboard notes and move through scale degrees — the skill that matters more than shapes — then triads and inversions, seventh chords, and arpeggios, for guitar, bass, and keyboard. You're never guessing what to practice next.
  • Runs everywhere, instantly. Gitori is a web app first (mobile apps too): open the site and play, no download, no app-store purchase.
  • Free to start, with the theory explained in plain English in the companion guides on this blog — you don't need to already understand intervallic function to begin.
  • Live guitar detection and spaced review, so missed notes resurface until they're automatic.

Where Solo pulls ahead: once you're past the basics, its Changes and Scale trainers offer a depth of intervallic-function drilling — especially over real chord progressions — that Gitori doesn't specifically target.

Which one should you pick?

Choose Solo if you're an intermediate or advanced player who already knows the fretboard and wants focused, function-based drilling for improvisation, especially over real chord changes.

Choose Gitori if you're earlier in the process and want one guided, free path that starts at note names and builds all the way to degrees, triads, and arpeggios — or if you want to practice on any device, not just iOS, Android, and Mac.

A reasonable combo: build the foundation in Gitori's courses, then graduate to Solo's Changes and Scale trainers once intervallic function is second nature.

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