Sep 05, 2005 11:03 PM
2163 Views
(Updated Sep 06, 2005 08:44 AM)
When you brush a piece of plastic or your fingers on a bunch of strings, you get to experience one of the greatest joys in life. Yet most people tend to avoid the guitar for fear of failure. Take it from me - the guitar is an easy instrument to play (but like every instrument, a hard one to master).
With that bit out of the way... time to review this real cool utility - Guitar Chords Laboratory
If you dont like the prospects of learning a musical instrument or the guitar is not your speed, you can skip this review altogether :)
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Part 1: Guitar Chord Primer for NEWBIES!
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So whats a chord again?
The musical alphabet has 12 letters or 12 notes to work with. They are C, C#, D, D#, E, F, F#, G, G#, A, A# and B (the # symbol indicates a SHARP note). You create melodies by playing notes in a sequence. A chord is something that lends a strong sonic statement on which you can build songs.
A chord is a bunch of musical notes that you play together to create a rich, strong, melodic sound. For Example - to play a C chord you have to play the C note, the E note and the G note together. Which means, you combined three notes to form the C chord.
In the above example, the C note is called the ROOT note.
One more example - to play an F major chord you have to play the F, A and C notes together... in this case the F note is the ROOT!
On a guitar
To form a chord, you have to use the fingers on your non-strumming hand (the left one in the case of a right hander) to push the right strings down. It might sound tough at the beginning but chip away.
So are there different types of chords?
Yes... there are. Here are some:
Major Chords - chords which have a happy sound to it.
Minor Chords - chords which have a melancholic sound to it.
Seventh Chords - these are used in blues and rock n roll a lot.
Diminished Chords
Augmented Chords
Suspended Chords
and so on... there are a whole lot of them.
But does one need to learn all of these?
No. If you learn just four chords - the C major, F major, G major and A minor - you can play hundreds of songs like Down On The Corner by CCR. The first goal should be to build a vocabulary of 15-20 commonly used chords.
And how does one learn how to form chords....
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Part 2: Guitar Chords Laboratory --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is a valuable tool that combines a GUITAR TUNER, a CHORD BOOK, a very cool LYRICS MANAGER and some other sweet features.
The Guitar Tuner helps you tune your strings by playing out each note so that you can tweak the string to sound right. The standard tuning for a guitar is (from fat string to thin string) E A D G B E
The Chord Book is the main part of the software. It shows you how each and every chord can be constructed on the guitar. You get to hear how the chord sounds too.
My favourite section of the Laboratory is the Lyrics Manager. Its a great tool to write down lyrics and chords and it has a very useful TRANSPOSE function (which helps alter a song's music to suit one's voice).
The interface is pretty and functional. Its not free but its worth paying 30 dollars for if you are a musician or someone who's chipping away at the guitar.
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Conclusion
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Listen to me and listen very carefully... get that guitar out or invest in one. All it takes is a little bit of dedication, some good reading material and utilities like this one. In a months time you can learn around 20 chords that will open a whole new world... a world of guitar music!
Go for it...
~finis~
Atleast download this software and fool around... its got some real nice features and you get to hear some musical notes being strummed or plucked....
You can download this software from: https://guitar-chords-laboratory.com/
I reviewed this one because its a topic close to my heart... thanks for reading
And if this review is a bit confusing, head to the comment section or M2M me... always willing to share whatever little I know...
