Here is the good news. There are a few courses on the internet which can help one learn to play the guitar. Some will teach easier and faster than others, while some a little more thoroughly. But the ultimate goal remains to learn how to play the guitar in the shortest amount of time.

If you have decide to learn how to play the guitar there are many methods of learning the guitar one would be to find a local musician and sign up for there course, this method is good if you are structured and don’t mind regular scheduled lessons with regular fees. Another and more popular method these days is buying a guitar course online. When deciding to purchase guitar lessons you need to find the best guitar courses online and then make a choice.

You should consider your skill level and your interest level when making your choice; this will help you pick the best guitar course for your needs. There are many online guitar courses available online whether you’re a beginner, intermediate or advanced guitar player. The advantages of online guitar lessons is the easy instant access to the course you chose and the inexpensive one time price that brings all the learning material into your home.

When choosing from the available Guitar Courses you need to consider the material supplied with the course, one course may supply a E-book that is pack filled with great learning material but with out sample lessons and videos it is much harder to learn and less enjoyable. From my experience it is much easier and definitely more entertaining when the guitar course offers step by step video lessons with there course material. So don’t think about it…pick a course and start enjoying the rewards of playing successfully!

Keep reading this page to see everything you get with review of jamorama

The best courses are those that teach you the basics as above, and then go on to provide lessons in the various guitar genres, so offering a complete course, from guitar learning for beginners right through to master’s courses in each style or genre.

Tim Somers
MusicHoncho.com

I have chosen music gadgets assuming that just about everyone these days will possess a PC with a USB connection. However, the second beauty of these USB devices is their ease of installation. Also, if you decide you want to use them after you have alerady started your PC they will usually be recognised as soon as you connect them

Roll-Up USB Piano

The Roll-Up USB Piano, is one of my favourites. It is a rubber mat with a four-octave keyboard moulded into its surface. Plug it into a USB port and you can make beautiful music with the software with it. It is not just a piano either. A range of polyphonic instruments is available, and there is also a metronome to help you practice.

A few years ago all instruments of this type, albeit often using special additional boards which needed to be set-up inside your PC, supported the MIDI system, in which a host of tunes have been set up, by hobby and casual players. Many of those that might receive this player as a gift may indeed already have their own MIDI collection. The Roll-Up Piano doesn’t support MIDI, or it could have been useful for those with an existing computer music setup, who wish to replace old favourites and add their own accompaniments.

Also, roll-up and easy to put away it may be, but it isn’t the easiest thing in the world to play as if you don’t use enough finger power as you play the notes don’t register at all.

Nevertheless, for knocking out an occasional tune, and for a bit of a sing-song on Boxing day it is a cheap and cheerful present selling at around ?30 (about $60).

USB Electric Guitar

If rock and roll is your thing, the Behringer iAxe 393 is a real electric guitar that connects directly to your PC via USB.

Bundled with it is a free version of Native Instruments’ Guitar Combos. What is that I hear you ask? Well the software simulates a wide range of amplifier sounds.

There is immediate enjoyment to be had from a quick jam trying out all the different sounds, but again in a similar way to the USB piano the iAxe didn’t in the end strike me as being a serious musical instrument.

If you were hoping that the included software would act as a sequencer plug-in, then you will be disappointed and there’s no simple way to hear yourself playing through your PC’s speakers, the audio output signal has to be routed via a non-standard audio output at that is fixed onto the guitar itself.

Now, a further point to make is that the guitar itself isn’t of very high quality. For the price at around ?100 (about $200), you could hardly expect anything of real musical quality though.

In common with many budget Stratocaster copies, it does also suffer from pickup hum, and the machine heads have a spongy, imprecise action.

I don’t think that its a bad deal at the price though - and since the iAxe has a standard quarter-inch jack in addition to the USB port, you can always plug it into an amp and rock out for real.

USB Guitar USB Connector

Of course, if you’re a keen guitarist, you probably already own a high-quality instrument. In that case, you might be interested in Behringer’s USB Guitar Connector. This neat little box turns any electric guitar into a USB device, and as for the guitar it comes with a free version of Guitar Combos.

The Guitar Connector shares the iAxe’s software limitations, so don’t expect to drop it into an existing recording setup. It only costs ?50, so you’ll have money left to buy the full version of Guitar Combos that interfaces with a sequencer or software that works with a 32-bit ASIO stream.

USB Virtual Drum Kit

To complete yourself an USB band, you could buy yet another USB based gadget. That’s the Ion VirtualDrumX, a system of six velocity-sensitive pads and two pedals that trigger a kit’s worth of drum sounds on your PC, at about ?130 inc. VAT (about $260).

There is bundled software supplied out of the box with provision for 233 different percussive sounds, plus a drumming game which should help you improve your skills.

The musicians who read this will want to know whether the VirtualDrumX works best as a standalone device. No, unfortunately you cannot use this device as a MIDI trigger, which will disappoint many.

Please also do be aware that the six identical pads which are supplied in the kit can’t reflect the action of a real drum kit. In truth you’ll be applying the same action if you’re splashing a cymbal or pounding on a low torn.

Again, these are gadgets to which will really only be able to provide amusement and a taste of the real-thing. But, possibly rather better than the predecessors in this review, this USB Drum Kit gives a good introduction to drumming.

Buying this technology and gadgets for Christmas is cheaper than investing in real skins, and since all the sounds are generated on your PC, you can put on a pair of headphones and not worry about disturbing the family while they sleep off their Christmas lunch.

Tim Somers
MusicHoncho.com

Their decision to censor Weird Al Yankovic’s latest spoof “Don’t Download This Song”, which a reflection of how the music industry is treating fans like common criminals, has gone to far.

You might think that the song has some bad language, an f-bomb or two that caused MTV to drop in four bleeps, but that is not the case at all.  The bleeps are over file-sharing sites Morpheus, Grokster, Limewire and KaZaA.

Here is an excerpt from the Don’t Download This Song lyrics:

Once in a while maybe you will feel the urge
To break international copyright law
By downloading MP3s from file-sharing sites
Like Morpheus or Grokster or Limewire or KaZaA

When first listening I thought this was a joke and that was how Weird Al produced the song, but when I checked out the uncensored version that the Weird one posted on YouTube I realized that MTV has taken on the roll of the music gods and added the bleeps – basically selling out to the music industry.

Check out the Weird Al “uncensored” version here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32wmepTVM3I

Tim Somers
MusicHoncho.com

I never used any peer to peer music sharing services like the old Napster, but the New Napster sure is grabbing my attention, they are now claiming to be the  world’s largest music store with over 6 million tunes available for downloading. iTunes claims they have 6 million songs available.

So what’s the difference?  As I see it just a commitment to Napster’s monthly $12.95 fee.  I already spend upwards of $20 a month and I have to show some control to not spend $30 or even $40 a month – it is easy to loose track of how many songs you buy in a given month.  At $12.95 if I stayed with my current 20 songs per month I’d be paying .65 per song and saving $7.05 per month, hey that’s almost 2 gallons of gas these days.

Napster is now compatible with ALL music devices…yes, even the iPod and iPhone!  So with that said I am going to give Napster a shot using their “Try Napster Free For 7 Days” offer and see how I like it – then more than likely I’ll be on board for the long haul. 

Here is a little background on Napster-

Roxio bought the assets of the original Napster company at its bankruptcy auction in 2002, with the objective of creating a new legal online music service which would let users access music through a subscription or on a fee-per-song basis—the artists and record companies the royalties they had been asking for as iTunes does. The new Napster was launched 6 months after iTunes launched.

Napster expects 2008 fourth quarter revenues to be in the neighborhood of $31 million. Napster is not only claiming to have the largest major label MP3 catalog in the industry, but also the largest library of independent music available anywhere. All U.S. download songs will now be in the user-friendly, DRM-free MP3 format, which is compatible with virtually any MP3 player or music phone including the iPod and the iPhone.

Tim Somers
MusicHoncho.com

Now any song or album purchased from the Rhapsody MP3 Music Store can be played on any MP3 player, yes even the Apple iPod.  This is awesome news making it easy to load up your iPod with all the latest music from sources other than iTunes.

Another great feature is the ability to listen to an entire song before you purchase it – opposed to the 30 second clips that most music stores offer.  With over 5 million songs from all four major music labels the Rhapsody MP3 catalogue is a real player in the music arena.

Prices are just about the same as found in the iTunes store - .99 cents for single tracks and $9.99 for most newly released albums.

RealNetworks is launching a store advertising campaign titled “Music Without Limits” that you may have already started seeing on Yahoo Music, MTV Networks and Verizon Wireless sites and affiliates.

You can try Real Rhapsody Free for 14 Days – check them out and start enjoying your Music, without limits.

Tim Somers
MusicHoncho.com