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Well, the first thing to do when learning to play guitar is... to buy one!
When we talk about software for guitar it is necessary to divide the topic into several categories: They are the programs that manage tablature, the ancient system of musical notation, which started with the lute, that has become popular with pop, rock and folk guitarists. Tab is maked for easy legibility when writing out an arrangement if your knowledge of musical theory is weak. Today
there are substantially two programs (both sharewares) that the guitarists
prefer:
In my opinion the two software programs
are similar enough in their characteristics and potentiality, that the best
thing to do is to try them both and to judge which is best for you. Besides, for
both programs there exist on the Web many wonderful sites, for guitar and other
instruments, that cover practically all music styles (pop, rock, jazz, folk,
country...). However, unfortunately, lately many of these sites face problems
from the record and musical book industry majors who are pushing copyright laws
and want them to shut down. Luckily (for the diffusion of files) there is another very complete tablature editor: Musedit. The last arrival among Tab editors is the German Tabazar (shareware). In case you play the lute, the only specific software for the editing of lute tablatures (to the best of my knowledge) is called Fronimo. Even if it is not properly a tablature editor, in this category it is possible to put a useful software that visualizes the files in .cho, .pro and .chopro formats, published in the newsgroups devoted to the songs, as you can visualize them in the song books (text + chords). The program we are talking about (by a Chilean guy) is a shareware called Chord Pro Manager.
Here the choice is wider, with varied specializations according to the various approaches to the techniques of teaching. If you are a jazz lover, there are three recommended programs by the American PG Music:
The first one is a splendid harvest of jazz classics (all of the standards), in fully grown Midi file (.mid), each one accompanied by the relative musical score and tablature, that flows on the screen while the song is playing. They can all be printed, for off-line study. Master Jazz guitar Solos and The Jazz Guitar Master Class are interactive programs that are intended to give you the basics of jazz improvisation for the guitar. The first one contains 50 original arrangements with rhythm section of bass, piano and drums, and relative guitar solos, always in fully grown .mid, based on the most typical jazz chord progressions. The second one contains 60 lessons on jazz guitar. Always as far as jazz is concerned, there is the really interesting Jazz Scale Suggester System software, that suggests and explains the scales to be used in the improvisation according to the chord progressions, freely inserted by the consumer: in other terms just insert in the grate the chords of a jazz song, and the program suggests, commenting it, the scale to use on every single chord!!! If instead you are interested in a program analyzing general chords, scales and relative interrelations, here are some software programs to look at:
They are all programs of interactive learning, to learn how to use scales, chords and their interrelations. In Goran Kuzminac's web site there is the (Italian) .pdf file "Breve corso di finger picking" useful for those guitar players who wish to learn finger-picking.
The term is a little forced, because a sequencer is always based on the same philosophy: a software multitrack recorder for MIDI and/or audio data, by now almost always with audio editing facilities. The problem arises from the fact that sequencers have always been considered as a software for keyboard players, for greater connection possibility of the electronic keyboards with the computer in comparison to any other instrument, and specifically to the guitar. The guitar sequencers are normal sequencers, with an aspect and an interface mostly user-friendly for the guitarist who wants to connect his instrument with the computer. Cakewalk in recent years has specialized in this type of products, with two excellent software programs:
They are songs collections, almost always in the format lyrics + chords, and almost always based on contributions from musicians.
The newsgroups are inexhaustible, but not specific, sources of information, and the possibility of an exchange of opinions, between amateurs (like me), professionals, connoisseurs, beginners and simple curious, is great. These are the newsgroups that deal specifically with guitar technicals, tablatures, search of texts and/or chords, software for guitar...
For those of you who love Brazilian music and Classical music for guitar, the two following newsgroups are particularly interesting:
Finally I think that, speaking of guitar
& computer, we cannot ignore the small (and almost mysterious) world of the
MIDI Guitar. You have to connect a guitar (almost always steel-strung, therefore
acoustics or electric) to the computer, to let it become a MIDI instrument, just
like an electronic keyboard. The problem is the physical nature of the guitar
that has notable problems of correct survey of the acoustic signal, over that of
translation of the same signal in MIDI message (pitch-to-MIDI). Somehow some
manufacturing Houses (Roland, Fender, Godin, Axon) have succeeded in the
difficult enterprise to build guitars predisposed already for a MIDI interface
(MIDI-ready) or particular pick-ups (esaphonic pick-ups) able to
"catch" and to translate the deriving signal correctly from every
single string. For those who want to deepen the complicated (for me too...)
world of MIDI guitar obviously there are some resources in the net:
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