Recommended Music Software

Band in a Box 2010 (PG music inc.)

Band-in-a-Box is an intelligent auto-accompaniment software program for your computer. It makes it possible for you to pracitce guitar (or any instrument) with a virtual band: just type in the chords for any song, using standard chord symbols (like C, Fm7 or C13b9), choose the style (Jazz, Bossa, Pop, Country, Classical and many more) and tempo you'd like, and Band-in-a-Box automatically generates a complete quality arrangement of piano, bass, drums, guitar and strings.

With Band-in-a-Box you can input a typical song in no time and you'll quickly build up a large library of your favorite songs! Band-in-a-Box understands repeats, choruses and verses, and even varies the accompaniment, just as human musicians would.


I remember the days when I used a cassette player to record chord changes to practice my improvisational skills on... It seems like such a hassle and a waste of time now. Band in a box is so easy to use!

I have only scratched the surface of the program. I just type in some chords or load previous saved songs, push play and jam to it, but you can do a whole lot more with it. There is for example the soloist feature. You can choose an artist to your liking (ex. George Benson, Charlie Parker or Jimi Hendrix), put in some chords, press play and out comes an improvisation with accompaniment in the style of the chosen artist.

There's lots of more features, like automated chord substitution, automated melody, audio recording, guitar tuning, ... Once you used it a couple of times, you can't imagine practicing without it!


Buy 'Band in a Box 2010'

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Power Tab Editor v1.7

Power Tab Editor is a tablature authoring tool. It allows for the creation of tablature scores that can be printed out and played back via MIDI. It features standard music notation and symbols as well as all of the popular tablature symbols. Powertab can import MIDI tracks, and can export to ASCII Text, HTML and MIDI format 1 files.

I like powertab. It's on of the best programs in its genre and it can easily compete with the commercial alternatives that are available (Powertab is FREEware). There's also a lot of Powertab files available on the net. A drawback of Powertab is that you can't manipulate the standard notation. If you're looking for a free tablature program then don't hesitate and get powertab.

Free Download

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Sibelius 4 Student Edition

Sibelius is also a notation software solution, but it gives you more flexibility and better looking scores then Powertab (it's not free though). There are a lot more manipulation possibilities on the standard notation, guitar tablature and layout.

It will turn tab into notation and let you create sheet music - add chord symbols, chord diagrams, lyrics and more. It also lets you post your songs on the Internet. Sibelius has the easiest interfaces for inputting your music of all the programs I've tried (and that are quit a lot).

It's the software I use for this web site.  Highly Recommended!

Buy 'Sibelius 4 Student Edition' at Amazon

Jazz Scale Suggester System

Jazz Scale Suggester System is a musician's aid that takes your chord input and suggests a scale on which you can base your improvisations. You can enter up to 400 chords by using drop-down menu selections , specifying the note, type (major, minor, diminished, augmented, and dominant seventh), and any of 14 chord structure variations, as well as the key of the piece. You can also import Band in a Box files (not in the lite version though). The Suggester System then analyzes your entries and recommends some commonly used scales for your solos -- evaluating your entire jazz chord chart, not just single chords in isolation.

I find the interface a bit slow and the program only works with common 'real book jazz standards', but JSSS is a handy tool for those who're not always sure what scale to use. There's a free lite version (no save, no import, 2 sessions at a time) and a paid version.

Download 'Jazz Scale Suggester System'

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