Have fun learning to play the guitar with Guitropolis
By Zatni Arbi
JAKARTA (JP): Is there anything that we cannot learn with the help of the computer? Of course there are still a lot of things that we cannot achieve with a PC or a Mac, but the list is getting shorter rather than longer every day.
Last week we took a brief look at a software program capable of assisting us to write short stories, novels or even screenplays. We can learn foreign languages like Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, German and, of course, English, on our PC.
I've also seen a CD-ROM on Clinical Gastroenterology, the contents of which would give you enough background information to enable you to translate a research report on the prevalence of diarrhea in Jakarta from Indonesian into English.
As virtual reality technology advances and becomes more widely available, it may even become possible to learn how to drive a car or even perform surgery on your computer. At a gathering with journalists last month, Intel Indonesia's country manager Werner Sutanto and his crew demonstrated a virtual basketball game that used a camera to detect the movements of our hands as we threw the ball on the screen. They also showed off an interactive English language learning program that relied on speech recognition technology and 3-D graphics.
As far as knowledge acquisition is concerned, there seems to be no limit to what you can acquire with the help of a CD ROM- equipped PC or Mac. That should not be surprising, though, because whatever knowledge is available in the book form can be transferred onto a CD-ROM. With the help of multimedia facilities -- sound, video and 3-D animation -- the learning process can be made richer and more effective. When it comes to skill development, however, there is no substitute for the real world. Take, for example, learning to play a musical instrument.
Alfred Interactive
I took up classical guitar while still a student back in late 1970s. God only knows how many hours I spent practicing during those years. I had gone as far as memorizing the entire score of Tarrega's enchanting Requerdos de la Alhambra and was developing a respectable tremolo skill. Fate had it that I was never to become another Julian Bream or Andres Segovia, but I still enjoy plucking at the strings to this day.
That is the reason why my curiosity was aroused when I saw the Guitropolis CD-ROM priced at US$49.00. The box promised "an adventure in learning to play the guitar". A search on Altavista revealed a dedicated homepage for Guitropolis and a lot of other related sites, so it must be a quite popular program. I tried it out just to see what it was all about.
The guitar lessons in Guitropolis are presented in two different styles. You can play the games while learning or you can choose the straightforward course. As expected, before you can play a game you are required to finish one of the ten chapters of the lessons.
The lessons are taken from two books, namely, Alfred's Basic Guitar Method 1 by Alfred d'Auberge and Morton Mamus and Teach Yourself to Play the Guitar by Morty Mamus and Ron Mamus. Alfred Interactive specializes in the creation of multimedia software titles for music education. The CD-ROM also includes a guitar tuner and a guitar chord manual that is strangely called Chord Computer.
Strong points
The lessons cover the basics such as the difference between a classical guitar and a steel string guitar, the solid body and the hollow body electric guitars. Click with the mouse on the picture of each of these guitars, and you'll hear its distinctive sound. I really like the sonic quality of the recording. Tuning my guitar with the Guitar Tuner was very easy thanks to the fairly natural sound produced by the speakers of a Compaq Presario 4540 that I used for the test drive.
The Chord Computer shows you all chords possible using the first five frets. A click on the Play arrow, and you'll be able to hear the sound. This function also tells you which finger to use for a particular note. The player also has a video screen that shows you exactly where your fingers should be as you play a note.
The games themselves are suitable for children aged nine and above, although the program is quite harsh in forcing you to repeat the entire lesson if you don't pass the test. I'd go for the "Method-only" version.
Despite the clear lessons and the beautifully arranged accompaniments, the program unfortunately leaves a lot to be desired. Most notable is the lack of navigating tools. You cannot repeat a piece automatically. When I was playing Cielito Lindo, for instance, I had to press the Play button over and over again, and that diminished the fun of playing the guitar, although the included accompaniment is excellent.
If you accidentally click on the Exit icon, the program will not ask you the customary question "Are you sure?" Instead, it will just shut down. A browser-like interface would be more useful for interactive programs such as this one.
The music player pops up and goes down the screen each time you go to a page that contains a musical score. You can choose whether to listen to a full band or just a guitar. Unfortunately the movement also produces the sound of a drawer being pulled out or pushed in and takes a few unnecessary seconds from the fun of learning.
I happen to believe that you need to concentrate on one style of guitar playing when you first begin to learn, and I think classical skills provide the best foundation for styles that you may adopt and develop later on. Unfortunately, the lessons mix rock, blues, country and pop early on.
The screen is created for 640 x 800. Alfred Interactive people should also work on higher resolution. And, strangely, the lesson does not even contain the most popular piece for beginners, Romance d'amour. This is perhaps because it is only intended to teach us the fundamentals of guitar playing and music reading.
What is the program's biggest limitation? Well, obviously you'll never become a Angel Romero or Eric Clapton without actually picking up the instrument and investing hundreds of hours of your life in good, honest practice.