First it was the electric guitar in 1931, then the immensely popular Guitar Hero made everyone feel like a rock star in 2005, and now in 2012 we have the iPhone (News - Alert)-powered guitar, or gTar. The gadget is a full-sized and working guitar, but instead of releasing actual sounds from the strings, the iPhone is plugged in to the body of the gTar. The iPhone then senses when a string is strung, and emits the correct sound associated with that string. It may seem like an extra and unnecessary step, but its creator, Incident Technologies, assures doubters the gTar is “a fully digital guitar that makes it easy for anybody to play music, regardless of experience.”

The project came to fruition through Kickstarter, where the gTar is endorsed by Dropbox (News - Alert) founder and CEO Drew Houston, who says “There’s nothing like the thrill of playing a real musical instrument. Unfortunately for most, learning can be a frustrating and time-consuming experience. That’s why we built the gTar.”

Currently the gTar works with the iPhone 4 or 4S, though the future of the product is uncertain. In its first day the popular startup project collected $65,000 in donations on Kickstarter, though Incident Technologies is asking for a total of $100,000. Current availability is limited, but once IT reaches its goal the gTar is expected to sell for $450.

In reaction to the frenzy of interest the project has received on Kickstarter, founder of IT Idan Beck posted a response to the page early this morning, saying “Thank you everyone for the simply amazing support you’ve given us in just the few short hours since our project launched. I want to apologize for our short term inability to be more reactive to questions and comments popping up both on here as well as via email. I promise that we will catch up as fast as we can.”

The appeal of the gTar comes from its four levels of difficulty, two for beginners and two for more learned musicians. When a song is selected through the iPhone, the frets of the guitar light up along the strings indicating where to place your fingers, and incorrect notes will not sound on the easier levels. This feature, SmartPlay, is turned off in “hard mode,” and the hardest level “free play” does not light up the frets at all.

With USB and quarter-inch line out connections, custom control LEDs, and different instrument and effect choices available through the iPhone, the gTar is quite a gadget for hopeful musicians, and will last six to eight hours on a full charge. Though the gTar will not instruct users in all aspects of music instrumentation, it is a cool tool which can make a music novice sound like a maestro in half the time – a need which Beck was smart to notice. He isn’t the only one: Skype (News - Alert) and Facebook recently collaborated on the “Say it with Skype” app, a sort of group video-chat that works between the two media outlets to record and promote the music of its users. Technology is fusing with music in new and interesting ways, and the gTar is sure to be the strong start of a much bigger movement.