Guitar Software For Songwriting. From Learning To Burning.

Guitar Software - From Learning To Burning

By Robert Curtis

There are a variety of programs available today to help your songwriting on guitar from the first time you pick up the instrument, to learn it, all the way to recording a cd, to burn it.

Learning And Improving Your Guitar Playing

If you're just starting out or have gotten to a certain point in your playing acumen and want to develop more capability there are a number of programs to help carry your skills further.

One of the most popular lines of guitar learning software is the offering of programs from eMedia. Their series covers everything from beginning guitar to specialized areas like rock or blues. And they have a program called eMedia Guitar Songs that helps you learn songs in various styles - great for enhancing your songwriting music writing pallete.

Also worth checking out are the noted Alfred company's CD-ROM programs for learning guitar. These programs follow their well known books but are interactive. You can peek at each title and their particulars here.

For a nuts-and-bolts ebook geared towards just the essentials for songwriters check out From Guitar Owner To Guitar Player by Songwriting Software Plus' very own guest tipster Evyn Charles.

Writing Guitar Chord Charts For Your Songs

Once you are at a comfortable level of playing ability for your writing you'll likely want to create at least chord based lead sheets of your songs for reference as you play or refer back to later.

A primary songwriting program on Songwriting Software Plus that is well geared to guitar chord entry and song construction by chords is Lyricist.

Lyricist is an all around program for your songwriting with great support for lyric development and for chord based lead sheet production Lyricist is hard to beat. It can even automatically click in guitar templates that show exact fingering positions.

Another chord entry based program for song construction is the best selling program from PG Music - Band-in-a-Box with versions for Windows PCs and Macs.

With Band-in-a-Box you can construct an entire full band arrangement to any number of classical and contemporary styles all built around your chord progression.

Software For Writing Guitar Music

For those talented souls who want an organic way of notating music consider programs that do it automatically from your playing.

In this department check out DigitalEar and Intelliscore. And these programs can create the notes for you without you having to have any notation ability.

At the other end of the spectrum there are two leading programs for music notation, Finale and Sibelius, that do an excellent job but note you're best suited for these programs if you're well versed in music theory and application.

Recording Your Guitar Playing

To record your guitar playing and frankly all your instruments and vocals in the realm of software there are a handful of top programs for Windows PCs and Macs. These programs are typically referred to as sequencers and handle both midi and audio recording quite handily.

For a most affordable and capable option for PCs check out PG Music's PowerTracks now in a completely new version 10 with many incredible upgrades. This program is quite frankly pretty phenomenal in general and it sells for a most affordable $49 US.

Moving up the line your looking at programs like Cubase and CakeWalk and similar for PC and these programs come in lite versions that are often quite potent for songwriters.

For Mac you're typically looking at Logic and Digital Performer and Logic has an excellent entry level version Logic Express.

Stringing This All Together

Now you should be versed, at least in a foundational way, on what programs can help you out for the different processes involved in writing and recording your songs with guitar.

Once you've written, recorded and mixed your song you're ready to burn it to CD.