Intermediate Guitar Coach

Rating:
Summary: Wow! Slick and Smart
Review: I have the beginners Guitar Coach CD_ROM, so I was expecting something similar when I picked up Intermediate Guitar Coach. At first I was a little put-off by the different interface, but now I've got into the product I'm very impressed.

Firstly, this product doesn't devote much time to theory and discussion (tab is again used - no standard notation). It basically launches you straight into a series of songs that progress in difficulty as you go. There's a good variety of songs from lesser-known traditional ditties, Spanish classical pieces, to some modern day classics. As the cover suggests, the product is geared towards accoustic guitars rather than electrics.

Intermediate Guitar Coach has a similar structure to the beginner Guitar Coach product in that each level has a tune, chord and fingerstyle arrangement. New techniques are introduced as required for the given song (eg. barre chords, alternate tunings, etc.) but don't expect coverage of these in great detail outside of their usage in the song you are learning. Each level then finishes with a "Cool Song", which is undoubtedly the best lesson. The songs are full arrangements of well-known tunes that you can impress your friends with. Kudos for the choice of songs which really are cool (or at least interesting) and each have a different technique to learn without being impossible to master.

Each song has video and tempo-adjustable midi accompaniments which move along with the on-screen tablature to assist with your learning. You can create your own loopable section of video or midi to concentrate on difficult areas. There are also smaller "tip" videos which concentrate on the more difficult sections in detail. There are also Real Audio versions of each song with the guitar and/or vocal tracks removed so you can perform with your own virtual backing band. This feature has definitely assisted my progress in each song. There's some introductory pages for each song which introduce the song's chords, new techniques and the like, but most time is spent on the one page where you master the song using the above features.

It also has the obligatory metronome, tuner (including a digital tuner, which hasn't worked real well on my PC setup) and links to a hidden website to download a neat little chord application - these are fluffy extras, in my opinion, rather than necessities. There's dozens of similar freeware products around, but hey, I'm not complaining.

The first lessons are rather simple and anyone who has only learnt some basic technique could play along, but the learning curve moves steadily upwards. I've managed to make it about half-way and am trying to master a nice fingerstyle arrangement of The Eagles "Love Will Keep us Alive". The final songs, which look really cool but are beyond my skill as yet, are by Black Crowes, Robbie Williams, Radiohead and Blind Melon (from memory). They sound great on my PC, but I must learn some patience before I get there on my guitar.

I've been really impressed by this product in its ability to allow me to master some great tunes. The beauty of this product is not in the depth of material, but in its ease of use, so that you can easily work your up to playing along with the songs at tempo. It also helps when you actually like the songs that you are playing. At this stage of my development I'm sure a bit of theory wouldn't go astray, but I'll have to look elsewhere for that, as Intermediate Guitar Coach doesn't concentrate on this area. Its geared towards getting you competently playing some intermediate level songs, and it does this very well indeed.

Rating:
Summary: Educational & Fun
Review: This product is a good follow on to Guitar Coach. Both products follow what I call a building blocks approach to learning. Everything you need to learn to play a piece of music is there for you in great detail and each block or section of training builds on previous blocks.

Most guitar tapes, videos and CDs have mostly old songs that are nice (and probably public domain, so the producer of the training material doesn't have to pay royalties to use the songs), but they do get a little old after awhile. Not so with Guitar Coach or Intermediate Guitar Coach. Both have recent songs that sound good and are fun to play.

I have Guitar Coach and Intermediate Guitar coach and find both to be excellent learning tools. I have several video lessons, and a shelves full of books on how to play guitar. I have found that I am making the most progress with Charanga's Guitar Coach and Intermediate Guitar Coach CDs over everything else I've tried, not to mention I'm having a lot of fun in the process!

Thanks to Charanga for making such a fantastic product!

Rating:
Summary: Educational & Fun
Review: This product is a good follow on to Guitar Coach. Both products follow what I call a building blocks approach to learning. Everything you need to learn to play a piece of music is there for you in great detail and each block or section of training builds on previous blocks.

Most guitar tapes, videos and CDs have mostly old songs that are nice (and probably public domain, so the producer of the training material doesn't have to pay royalties to use the songs), but they do get a little old after awhile. Not so with Guitar Coach or Intermediate Guitar Coach. Both have recent songs that sound good and are fun to play.

I have Guitar Coach and Intermediate Guitar coach and find both to be excellent learning tools. I have several video lessons, and a shelves full of books on how to play guitar. I have found that I am making the most progress with Charanga's Guitar Coach and Intermediate Guitar Coach CDs over everything else I've tried, not to mention I'm having a lot of fun in the process!

Thanks to Charanga for making such a fantastic product!

Rating:
Summary: Great Product
Review: Used both Emedia Guitar Method 1 & Intermediate Guitar Method. This product complements the Emedia products very well. The Intermediate Guitar Coach is very challenging, but the beauty of it is it allows you to work more on technique and playing in time with the whole band where emedia gives you a great theoretical approach with learning the different techniques and reading it in standard music notation. Both companies make it a great multimedia combination.

Rating:
Summary: Great Product
Review: Used both Emedia Guitar Method 1 & Intermediate Guitar Method. This product complements the Emedia products very well. The Intermediate Guitar Coach is very challenging, but the beauty of it is it allows you to work more on technique and playing in time with the whole band where emedia gives you a great theoretical approach with learning the different techniques and reading it in standard music notation. Both companies make it a great multimedia combination.

Rating:
Summary: Great Product
Review: Used both Emedia Guitar Method 1 & Intermediate Guitar Method. This product complements the Emedia products very well. The Intermediate Guitar Coach is very challenging, but the beauty of it is it allows you to work more on technique and playing in time with the whole band where emedia gives you a great theoretical approach with learning the different techniques and reading it in standard music notation. Both companies make it a great multimedia combination.