eMedia Guitar Method V.5 Review

By: Brady Lavin

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Everybody and their mother want to learn how to play guitar. The problem is, people often take lessons and either have too much thrown at them, or they get bored because their teacher has them playing out of a Mel Bay book that seems to be designed to bore people to death. eMedia Guitar Method V.5 seeks to give prospective guitar learners a way to learn at their own pace while keeping it interesting. Intended for beginners ranging from “I’ve never seen a guitar before” to “I know a couple easy songs,” Guitar Method is thorough and customizable, and it has some incredibly useful features.

All of the lessons can be skipped or jumped ahead to, which is nice for people who already know what the different parts of a guitar are or don’t necessarily want to learn chords they previously studied. That being said, the informational first section conveys a lot of information essential to any guitar player, like how to change strings, the different types of guitars, proper body position while playing and much more.

The lessons, which are taught by Kevin Garry, Ph.D. from the University of Colorado at Boulder, are structured very well. They begin with simple forms of open chords and end with reading standard notation, which prevents it from becoming boring like those Mel Bay books. Throughout the lessons, eMedia’s Guitar Method covers many different styles, including folk, rock, blues and country for a well-rounded approach to learning the guitar. And if country or blues music isn’t a big interest, skip that lesson! It doesn’t force the student into anything they don’t wish to learn like a teacher might do.

The focus of this software is on playing songs. Real songs. Like the Grateful Dead’s “Uncle John’s Band” and “Rock N’ Me” by the Steve Miller Band, and many more. Of course, the beginning lessons have some dull, old folk songs, but those are necessary. Guitar Method wouldn’t be a good product if it jumped straight to more difficult rock songs.

There are a couple of features included in the program that set eMedia’s Guitar Method head and shoulders above the competition. For one, it includes a built-in recorder, so a student can hear exactly how they sound, which provides some much-needed perspective to a budding guitar player. It also has a guitar tuner and metronome integrated into the software as well.

The coolest feature, however, is the interactive feedback when playing melodies. With the interactive feedback turned on in lessons on melodies, the software listens to the melody the student is playing and highlights the notes on the screen in green that are played correctly. This is necessary in the absence of a teacher, because the student may not necessarily be able to tell if they play a wrong note. Interactive feedback solves this problem quite well.

The thoroughness of eMedia’s Guitar Method is also impressive. For almost any subject in the lessons section, there will be an option to “Learn More” about whatever is being taught. Students who wish to go above and beyond can then get a more in-depth lesson.

When learning any instrument, details are extremely important, and this software doesn’t leave any detail untouched. It even makes sure to tell the student to take periodic breaks to rest, not to press too hard on the strings, and to keep the fingernails on their fretting hand short. And when showing chord diagrams, they put the numbers near the fret, not in the middle of the fret, to convey the actual place to place one’s fingers.

Of course, when using software like this, the student must actually want to learn. There is no weekly lesson where a teacher will be disappointed if the student doesn’t practice, so an active interest in learning how to play guitar must be present in order for a student to really benefit from it. But if a student is dedicated, eMedia’s Guitar Method software is one of the absolute best ways to learn how to play guitar.