New software for learning guitar

By GXPN Staff   

And now for something completely different . . .  We've discovered a web site that offers a new approach to learning to play. The site is LickByNeck.com. The software is FREE and it plays guitar examples and shows the notes on the fingerboard at the same time. Its uses a MIDI track, so you can slow it down as well.

LickByNeck is FREEWARE that displays an onscreen animated guitar fretboard with the notes, allowing the user to learn the guitar visually. No music notation or TAB reading skill is required!

The effect of the animated fingerboard is like having a controllable video playing while you listen. It also displays the TAB at the same time for those who find that useful.

We first saw this referenced on the Ted Greene Memorial Site where Ted's album arrangements were converted into this format. If you know Ted's music, you know that must have been a challenge!

Each arrangement is downloadable as a windows executable— the tune and the software are bundled together.  Just click on it and it runs. There are about 60 solo guitar/chord melody/fingerstyle arrangements available, and they are all FREE. (Did we mention there is no cost?) There are also melody lines and licks. Other material includes transcriptions of Joe Pass, George Benson, Martin Taylor, Grant Green, and even Mr. Bach.

And it gets better —  right now he's posting a new arrangement every day.

The guitarist/programmer responsible for all this goes by the moniker of FATTQ. As he told us recently "My primary objective for starting this web site is to to help anyone get started on solo guitar playing. And I'm training my own solo guitar arrangement skills by committing myself to producing an arrangement daily for the 'Tune of the day' section."

Believe it or not, FATT will take requests, and he'll also convert YOUR lessons, arrangements or whatever into this format.

All guitarists should take a look at this site. Even if you're an accomplished note reader you may know some friends or students who can benefit. We're in favor of any tool that encourages chord melody solo guitar playing, and any tool that can help newer players improve - and this site fits the bill.

What you can do:

1) Check it out. The arrangements go from simple to complex, and across styles.
2) If you like it, make a PayPal donation. This is a lot of work and a lot of bandwidth to pay for.
3) Tell someone else.
4) Make any suggestions for new features or material.

FATT tells us that several players have already requested a looping feature (to replay a small section of the tune) as well as several other enhancements. The software currently only runs on MSWindows (sorry Mac users).

We did a little math: If you paid $2 an arrangement to get this information via a lesson, this site is an outrageous bargain.  (And if you know someone who'll show you this stuff for $2... let us know.)  Freeware doesn't mean 'steal-ware' so if you do get value, you can help FATT out so he (and others like him) will keep doing this kind of work.

More info: www.LickByNeck.com