As I wrote in my last post, I’ve been spending a lot of time learning Duke Ellington’s hit song, “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore.” Not only do I find this song timely, in the age of COVID-19, but I like the tune itself. I’m finding it has launched me into another phase of my learning to play/playing guitar.

When I took lessons last year, I realized that there were fundamentals of playing that I had either neglected or ignored. Now, trying to master this latest piece, I’m finding that my past playing has been sloppy. By that, I mean that when playing chords, I looked at the entire width of the guitar neck — all six strings. Oh sure, I knew that some chords required me to mute a string or two, but my right hand didn’t care even though my left hand was forming the shape. My teacher and this song have made me realize that sometimes only two, three or four strings are played to generate the desired sound.

Now, I’m online looking for additional songs I of this type I can add to my practice routine. “This type” tends to lean toward jazz standards, and one I’ve looked at is another Duke Ellington piece, his signature song, “Take The A Train.” More complex than the first, but it’s a catchy and recognizable (to me, at least) song, so while I may defer trying to learn it, I’ve at least bookmarked it.

One of the sites I’ve used for finding chord arrangements (and more now than before, tablature), is Ultimate Guitar. I’ve collected a variety of mostly pop and rock arrangements from there, generated and submitted by users. The site also offers downloadable Guitar Pro files. What is Guitar Pro, I wondered?

It turns out a French software company, Arobas Music, is the author of Guitar Pro. The latest release as of this writing is version 7.5. Several online reviews (one is here, which offers a 10% affiliate discount as well) are claiming this latest version is head and shoulders the best software available to write, listen to, and learn stringed instruments. The company offers a 30 day free trial, so I downloaded it (Mac and Windows versions are available), and I’m exploring it now. My tendency is to pull out my wallet and immediately plunk down the dollars ($69.95 US), but I’m at least going to wait until I’ve tried it for a week or so before doing so. But already it seems likely I’ll be adding this to my software library!

There’s an added enticement to buying this software now: FREE access to mySongBook until May 31. A quick site scan shows there are some awesome guitar tabs there, and they all have Guitar Pro downloads! This may be the greatest side-effect of the Coronavirus lockdown!