Product Description

The eMedia Blues Guitar Legends Software teaches you have to play classic blues songs from the masters themselves!Blues Guitar Legends can be enjoyed by guitar players of all skill levels. 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 you don't need to read music. Original recordings and variable-speed MIDI tracks let you learn at the tempo you choose. Looping lets you select and repeat tricky sections of a song.eMedia Blues Guitar Legends CD FeaturesTen Original Artist RecordingsStatesboro Bluesperformed by The Allman Brothers BandSmoking Gunperformed by Robert CrayEarly In The Morningperformed by Buddy Guy, with Jeff Beck and Eric ClaptonThe Thrill Is Goneperformed by B. B. KingHide Awayperformed by Freddie KingBoogie Chillenperformed by John Lee HookerCherry Red Wineperformed by Jonny LangCrossfireperformed by Stevie Ray VaughanHoochie Coochie Manperformed by Muddy WatersBack Door Manperformed by Howlin WolfFull and Simplified Versions of Each SongLearn to play the song note-for-note or choose the simplified chord version for beginners! Additional MIDI tracks for each version allow you to adjust song tempo to your skill level. Looping feature allows you to highlight and play only a selected portion of the song.Enhanced CD-ROMAs an enhanced CD-ROM, Blues Guitar Legends can be played either on an audio CD player or on your computer.Playing TipsInstructional material presents the chords and tips needed to master the song and also helps you emulate the tone and technique of the blues guitar greats.Artist Biographies and Phot

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5374 in Software
• Color: None
• Brand: eMedia
• Model: EG08001
• Platforms: Windows Me, Windows NT, Mac OS 9 and below, Mac OS X, Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows 98, Windows 95
• Format: CD-ROM
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: 1.50" h x 7.50" w x 9.50" l, .50 pounds

Features

• Learn to play guitar with extensive tools, designed for all skill levels
• 10 original recordings, with full and simplified versions of each
• Playing tips
• Recorder lets you record and play yourself back
• Animated fretboard shows real-time display of notes

Amazon.com
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 recreated, 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

Customer Reviews

Great fun but not for beginners
This is a wonderful CDRom. The songs are mighty enjoyable, and eMedia lets you see exactly how the blues greats created the toe-tapping music that they did. But be warned: learning to play these songs using the eMedia system isn't for rank beginners. I'm a classical guitar player with over a decade of playing experience, and I had to slow the songs to less than half their speed to even have a fighting chance of keeping up. You're expected to already know some blues techniques and have some accessories (e.g. a glass slide). Eventually, I know I'll get the hang of these songs and have a great time. But it's gonna take practice, practice, practice.

Play blues like a pro
I picked up Blues Guitar Legend because of the great songs by Stevie Ray Vaughan and BB King. When I saw the animated fretboard I was blow away. Bends, slide and vibroto make this feature very cool. The multi speed option made learning the songs very easy. I highly recomend picking this one up.

Mesmerizing!
There is simply no better way to learn these songs. You can isolate different sections of the music and loop them over and over (both the audio and the tab/notation). You can even slow it down. The animated fretboard is also very cool. It plays the notes in time with the music. It even bends the notes. I only wish they'd make more.