| The word innovative can often be a hackneyed term to describe eye-catching software design. But in the case of eMedia's Blues Guitar Legends, the word is truly apt. The rock cognoscenti here at Amazon.com's music-software evaluation division are really starting to love eMedia's guitar instruction series. Quite simply, we've seen nothing like their products before, and apparently we're in the majority, judging by the popularity of the Seattle-based company's other titles, like Guitar Methods 1 and 2. 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 |
