Computer Equipment Required
We have made every effort to make our music lessons available to everyone without requiring massive investment in computer hardware and software:
Short Answer
If you are able to read these pages and can play the audio files on this site, you have everything that you need to use these lessons. Ideally you should also have a microphone to create sound files.
Computer
The lessons have been extensively tested using Windows 3.1, Windows 95, Macintosh and Linux. We have taken special care to use standard applications that work on all the major computer platforms. Our lessons are all in standard web (html) format We therefor expect our lessons will work with other operating systems such as Windows NT and OS/2.
Access to
the InternetYou have a choice of how you would like to receive lessons, you may either download them from the web, or they may be E-mailed to you. At a minimum you therefor need E-mail access to the Internet. Your connection to the Internet may be via modem or LAN connection. The lessons are compressed into a zip file that you either download or is sent as an E-mail attachment. These zip files vary in size from about 200kb to 450kb depending on the lesson and the song chosen.
Note that some organizations prevent E-mail messages with large attachments from being delivered. If you connect to the Internet using your organization's LAN connection, you should check that these E-mail attachments will be allowed through if you wish to receive the lessons by E-mail. (If you have full Internet web access this need not concern you.)
Sound card
capable of playing and recordingEach lesson contains a number of sound files. These files enable you to listen to how chords, picks, strums and songs should sound. Your sound card does not need to be sophisticated or "Sound Blaster™ Compatable". Although it is not essential that you send us sound files of your playing, it is the only way that we are able to give proper feedback on your progress. You will also need a microphone to record files to send back to us.
Pkzip WinZip
or equivalentIn order to keep the file sizes as small as possible for E-Mail or download, they have been compressed in pkzip format. Before you can use the files they need to be uncompressed. We advise Windows users to use WinZip. Macintosh users should use zip.
Web browser
All the lessons are in html (web) format. Html files were used as they allow the full multimedia that we require for this course. While any browser should work, the lessons have been formatted to take account of the latest features of Microsoft Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator and may not look as good using other browsers.