Guitar Made Simple is a beginner to intermediate guitar course, created by Chris Standring, a professional guitarist with over 20 years of experience. The course will teach you how to play both acoustic and electric guitar and is presented in a step-by-step fashion. It has 65 interactive lessons with over 300 exercises.
Basically, the lessons in Guitar Made Simple look like this: first you'll watch a video of Chris Standring explaining what you need to do and hear audio examples of the specific exercise, and then you'll play along - you'll see what you need to play in both tablature and standard notation (even which finger you need to use), and all the chords come with photo diagrams (also with click-to-hear audio). Once you're comfortable enough with the specific exercise, you can continue to practice it with the provided backup tracks. You can play solo and have the computer playing rhythm, or the other way around.
This is a great course if you're a complete beginner as it will have you playing guitar literally in a matter of days. If you already have some experience, this course will do a great job of filling up the gaps in your knowledge. If you're already an accomplished guitarist looking to take your playing one step further, however, Guitar Made Simple is not a course for you. In that case, you might want to try a more advanced guitar course by Chris Standring, entitled Play What You Hear.
The lesson on half-diminished and diminished alone is worth the purchase price. This was something I didn't understand and no one had been able to explain it to me. Thru Guitar Made Simple I now have a good basic understanding of where they come from and how to apply them. I have been using the techniques and they really do put a different flavor in the chord progressions. I do enjoy the monthly lessons also.
Mac Lanzas