Which guitar tutor software should I choose?
With four budding guitarists in our house, we have all been eager to try out the software guitar tutors. The guitar is the ultimate teach-yourself instrument, and with all the wealth of tutor books already available what are the advantages to using a software based approach?
The short answer is that I can honestly say I have learnt more in a week of playing with this software than I have over 25 fruitless years of trying to get anywhere with a self-teach book....
The long answer is that with a multimedia approach you get to learn through a combination of exciting resources:
- video instruction and example
- animated guitar tab or traditional notation, with effortlessswitching between the two
- high quality audio examples
- variable speed MIDI - how often have you tried to play along with a CD accompaniment only to have fallen behind in the second bar never to catch up? With MIDI you slow down the tempo to suit you
- animated guitar fretboards, which mean that as the piece is playing you can actually see which fingers to put down where.
Working through a series of lessons you gradually build up skills, but right from the outset you get the chance to play along with backing tracks and really feel that you are progressing. In particular, children like quick results, and we have certainly found that ours were quickly rewarded with the sense of achieving something straight away.
If I have convinced you of the benefit of software guitar tutors, your next decision: which one? They all promise rich rewards but can they deliver? Yes, they can, but each tutor offers a slightly different approach so I'll try and summarise.
Our son's favourite was definitely . Why? Firstly you aren't required to read very much at all, you get video instruction right from the start, and the teacher, Ross Bolton, starts off with simple 2-note power chords and builds from there until you are soon playing along with the rock band. Working through it with him, I learnt so much about the structure of chords and tunes. It is simple to navigate through the lessons, we never had to look at the help at all, which is always a bonus. This tutor will appeal to anyone who wants to get playing rock or blues guitar straight away. As well as the video instruction, it incorporates an animated fretboard which plays alongside the animated guitar tab notation. I perhaps ought to add that my husband really like this software too, and was soon playing the first song sequence having never picked up a guitar before.
Our daughter was very taken with the . The eMedia software take a song-based approach: you learn a chord, you can play the first song along with the backing. You learn another chord, and now you can now play several simple songs. Again, the emphasis is on getting you playing and achieving as quickly as possible. Easy versions of the chords are taught first, so even those with small hands can keep up. Again, there is an animated fretboard and notation to follow. You can switch between high-quality audio, and variable-speed MIDI so even the slowest chord changer (erm, me....) can keep up!
Finally, the most expensive but comprehensive packages are the tutors available in acoustic and electric guitar versions. With 6 CD-Roms, these tutors really are incredibly thorough and detailed guitar software packages. There is a well thought out system of lessons and exercises aimed at developing good technique, correcting mistakes and eventually developing quite advanced skills. They have all the usual benefits of animated fretboard and notation, variable-speed MIDI, and their renowned video instruction.
In summary, I really believe the software tutors all have considerable benefits over and above the book-based approach, and hopefully you will now be able to make an informed choice between them. Given the price of private tuition, these all offer a good value alternative.