Guitar+Pro



toc (Guitar Pro Logo, Courtesy of Guitar Pro)

= Description = (Screen shot of Guitar Pro)

Guitar Pro is a multitrack editor software for musicians who plays of guitar, bass, piano, keyboard, drum, or other instruments to learn and practice with real time music score and tablature playback features and many more practical functions. It has versions for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and Mobile APP on both iOS and Android system. Guitar Pro is written by the French company Arobas Music.

= History =



(Screen shot of Guitar Pro version 3)

Create by two guitar players at first in 1998, Guitar Pro immediately became one of the most popular practicing software for guitar players at home. Later when the founder started the French company Arobas Music, they started to hire programmer and engineer to improve the free version software. With the online open forum community and support, the company provided a paid version with more features to private teachers, schools and advanced player.

The first four versions of Guitar Pro were only available for Microsoft Windows. Later Guitar Pro version 5 started to release the Mac OS X version in 2006, this version also supports Linux as well.

Guitar Pro 6 took a major redesign on interface and many other parts of the software. In 2011, Guitar Pro 6 App was made available for iOS mobile device.

**Impact on Teaching and Learning**

(Screen shot of Guitar Pro)

Most of the self taught or private taught guitar students don’t know how to read traditional music score sheet. Before guitar Pro came out to the market, there was no musical teaching and learning software provided the function of editing both score sheet and guitar tablature at the same time. The software transforms the way of guitar and music instructors’ teaching.

The following features made Guitar Pro as one of the major learning software in school or at home: simultaneously music playback and reading ability; writing of score sheet and guitar tablature at the same time; auto transpose music key and guitar finger position; real time sound bank technology; powerful online community support.

Guitar Pro has become one of the most popular teaching tools for guitar teachers in private and public schools. Because the easy edit ability of the software, music teacher can now write the music piece either in traditional music sheet or guitar tablature. The ability of saving the music piece as a certain Guitar Pro file enables the music students can now learn the guitar playing and music at home or online.

= Practical Applications =

(Screen shot from Guitar Pro official website)

__ Great teaching tool for music teachers __ Easy to create music score sheet and guitar tablature at the same time Use metronome to teach music in certain measurement

__ Great learning tool for music students __ Easy for them to see finger position change while listening the music playback Students can browse other free and paid tablature online

__ Great practice tool for guitar player and band members __ With real time music playback capability, guitar player and band members can practice with the software With the real time key and finger position transpose function, guitar player and band members can play in their own favorite key

=Example and Demonstration= Official Tutorial media type="custom" key="23970738"

Review by a professional guitar instructor =media type="custom" key="23970742"=

=About the author= Jia Cheng (C.J) Chen is the founder and managing director of BCM International LLC, a Multi-Media design and production firm focus in Asian languages market. C.J is currently enrolled in the Master's of Educational Technology program at UH Manoa.

= External Links = []

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