by J.Arif Verner

In the competitive world of music software, few stones remain unturned. Nonetheless, guitarists represent an untapped market. Perhaps it's the technophobic side of their ongoing love affair with vintage gear—but, then again, even drummers have an easier time finding high-tech toys to call their own. More likely, it's the fact that guitarists haven't needed to buy a computer just to keep on top of the state of the art, as keyboard players and recording engineers have. But things are changing. Thanks to the efforts of a few small companies, six-string slingers may find that a computer is a welcome addition to their arsenal.

Obviously, you'll appeal to more guitarists if you level out the MIDI learning curve. The advent of General MIDI made this a viable proposition, and PG Music takes advantage of it to make Jazz Guitarist for Windows a breeze to run. This program is an enhanced music-minus-one machine, playing back sequenced GM arrangements to 60 jazz standards (including the guitar part). You can mute any part and control tempo, key and patch selection. As each piece plays, the screen displays notation and note positions via keyboard and guitar-neck graphics. The quality of the arrangements is exceptional —particularly the guitar parts, which are surprisingly authentic (having been entered by a real guitarist playing a MIDI guitar). Priced at $49,Jazz Guitarist is a useful practice tool and an excellent value.

If you're not quite proficient enough at jazz to play along with a simulated band, you might hone your skills using Six String Software's GuitarWorks ($79) and SDG Soft's Scale Magic ($89). Essentially, both are multimedia databases for IBM/DOS (compatible with Creative Labs SoundBlaster and Roland MPU-401).

GuitarWorks has four major components: an interactive pitch pipe for tuning, a chord/interval identifier (you fill in a block diagram, Gui- tarWorks names the chord), a rudimentary sequencer, and a chord dictionary with 5300 entries representing 44 chord types. If you look up, say, G7, the screen displays block diagrams of several inversions of G7; when you click on a diagram, you can hear what it sounds like and see the fingering on a graphic guitar neck at the bottom of the screen. Using the recorder/editor, you can sequence chords and solo lines into patterns, edit them and play them back. (Six String also offers a 30 lesson disk called Scales & Riffs, a collection of sequenced guitar arrangements of Christmas songs, and a helpful book/disk combination entitled How to Play Guitar, $15 each).

In addition to chords, Scale Magic displays, plays and prints out scales and arpeggios. Selecting from a series of menus, first you specify a chord type and inversion, which is displayed on a graphic grutar neck. Then the menu presents various scales and modes to use while soloing over the chord; when you select one, its notes and fingering are superimposed on the neck, color-coded for easy reading. Likewise, you can view superimposed notes and fingerings for the arpeggiated version of the chord; typing the left and right arrow keys enables you to view higher and lower portions of the fretboard. As with GuitarWorks, there's a "progression editor" with which you can sequence your own idiomatic guitar arrangements to play along with. Five add-on Style Modules ($19 each, five for $76) provide rudimentary backup so you can apply what you've learned.

If you're in a more creative frame of mind, you might want to turn to Howling Dog's Power Chords Pro for IBM/Windows ($199), the first sequencer designed specifically for guitarists. While using the program doesn't actually involve playing your axe, it features an onscreen fretboard on which you can define chords, picking and strumming patterns, hammer-ons and string bends. Each time you change a fingering position, the new chord's name shows up automatically below the fretboard. The Chord Request function reverses the process, displaying the fingerings of chords selected by name. Furthermore, the onscreen guitar neck is configurable! You can create stringed instruments with up to 12 strings, tuned any way you choose, each transmitting on its own MIDI channel.

Power Chords represents music in terms of modular building blocks: melodies, bass lines, chords and drum patterns. Once you've created a block (using either the onscreen facilities, an external MIDI controller or by importing a Standard MIDI File), you can drag them into place wherever you like to create a composition. (This method of sequencing lends itself to repetitive song-type forms rather than through-composed pieces.) Howling Dog's package is a guitar-friendly alternative to the usual keyboard-oriented approach to sequencing. However, composers of more open-ended music might find it too restrictive.

Wouldn't it be nice to enter MIDI data into Power Chords directly from your guitar? The G-Vox system from Lyrrus provides one way to do it. By attaching the G-Vox belt pack and pickup ($399), you can plug your axe directly into the serial port of an IBM (running Windows) and use various interactive software packages. A program called MIDI Transfer is free; it captures your playing and translates it into a Standard MIDI File. Data from the G-Vox pickup can be routed directly into Power Chords using a program called Bridge ($129), essentially turning your guitar into a full-fledged MIDI controller.

Other G-Vox programs are instructional. Riffs ($79) is a software platform that runs modules called Artist Libraries ($16~$24), interactive lessons with Steve Morse, Adrian Legg and others. These display notation, tab and finger positions as you play and evaluate your accuracy in matching examples. Chords ($79) identifies and notates any chord you play. It also creates leadsheets and provides access to chord dictionary features in the Artist Libraries. All in all, the G-Vox system is a step up in price and performance.

If all of this sounds too rich for your blood, search out Guitar Teacher ($5), a shareware program for DOS and Windows from Software Labs. When you select a chord (from a list of 250), Guitar Teacher simply displays a block diagram. This is a bare-bones product—no sound, no options, no frills. But the price is right, and it's a quick, easy way to check out the burgeoning guitar/computer interface.