eMedia Blues Guitar Legends

For those who want to learn blues-style guitar playing--which should be any guitarist interested in the roots of pop music--you can do no better than Blues Guitar Legends Vol. 1. Picture buying an audio CD of 10 of the greatest blues songs of all time, but instead of getting just the songs on disk, you also receive a comprehensive, visually rich system for learning those songs. Throw in common information about guitar tuning, song notation, and biographical data on the artists, and you've got eMedia's Blues Guitar Legends.

Upon launching the program, a content window pops up with pictures of nine blues artists--including Muddy Waters, B.B. King, John Lee Hooker, and Stevie Ray Vaughn--and one band, the Allman Brothers. Roll your mouse over the picture and hear a quick sample of a song, one of many little details we love about this program. If you're just starting out, you can click on the Intro icon to get an overview of the software, its icons, and their functions. Learn finger positions, how to read chord charts, and how to tune your guitar using the built-in tuner. Go back to the content window and click on an artist to launch a song. Have your guitar ready, because now the fun begins.

As the song is playing, you'll view the heart of eMedia's system--the animated fretboard--and the notation window containing the musical score of the guitar parts in the song. The animated fretboard is simply one of the coolest features you'll find in instruction software. It's a top-down view of a guitar neck, with chord and finger patterns that change, or play, as the song plays. You can actually watch how the fingers slide, bend the string, and use vibrato. B.B. King's trademark butterfly tremolo technique is dutifully re-created, as is Duane Allman's legendary slide style.

You can slow down the tempo of the song, loop sections, change between lead and chord parts, record yourself playing, and even sing along to the lyrics if you want. Practically the only thing you can't do is stop to ask Muddy Waters a question, but with this software, you won't have to. You'll be speaking his language soon enough.

Most of all, you'll have a lot of fun with Blues Guitar Legends. And you just might spare yourself years of a hard-living, freight-train-catching bluesman's lifestyle. --John Bosch

Amazon.com Product Description
Learn how to play classic blues songs from the masters themselves with eMedia's Blues Guitar Legends. Simplified chord versions of the songs are ideal for beginners, while experienced players can learn note for note from the full transcriptions of both lead and rhythm parts. The animated fretboard shows you the fingerings in real time, so that you don't need to read music. Original recordings and variable-speed MIDI tracks let you learn at the tempo that you choose, while looping lets you select and repeat tricky sections of a song. The software package comes with 10 original artist recordings, including "Statesboro Blues," performed by the Allman Brothers Band; "Smoking Gun," performed by Robert Cray; "Early in the Morning," performed by Buddy Guy, with Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton; and "The Thrill Is Gone," performed by B.B. King. Full and simplified versions of each song help you to learn to play the song note for note. Instructional material presents the chords and playing tips that are needed to master the song, and helps you emulate the tone and technique of the blues guitar greats. Watch the fretboard come alive with the Animated Fretboard, a real-time display of notes, including bends, vibrato, and slides. This includes both right- and left-handed views from the perspectives of looking both down at your guitar and across at an instructor's guitar. Visually tune your electric or acoustic guitar by playing into a computer microphone. This automatic tuner also includes custom tunings for specific songs, when needed, and provides audio reference notes for each string. A metronome allows you to set your own tempo and work on your picking speed, rhythm, and timing. It provides a visual cue and/or audio tick, and a full range of tempi--from largo to presto. One of the more useful features of Blues Guitar Legends is the Recorder, which lets you record and play back your recording, and allows you to compare your recordings with the originals, fine-tune your skills, and store musical ideas. This extensive package also offers insights into the lives of the legends, with artist biographies and photographs. Additionally, eMedia's Blues Guitar Legends is an enhanced CD-ROM, and can be played on either an audio CD player or your computer.

Product Description
Blues Guitar Legends features 10 monumental blues songs by artists such as Stevie Ray Vaughan, B.B. King and John Lee Hooker. Original artist recordings are synched to an animated fretboard that displays fingering positions on a virtual guitar neck. Complete, note-for-note transcriptions of both lead and rhythm guitar parts, plus simple chord-based versions are all included. Songs are written in both standard notation and guitar tablature. MIDI audio tracks supplement the master recordings of each song, enabling students to learn at a tempo best-suited to their skill level. Built-in accessories include an automatic tuner, metronome and built-in recorder. - Pentium PC, Windows 95 / 98 / NT / 2000 / Me, 16 MB free RAM. - Power PC, System 7.5.3 or later, 16 MB RAM.