Music Master Publishing Guitar Wheel GW-01 Reviews 
5 / 5 based on 1 reviewsThe Guitar Wheel is a two-sided music theory educational learning tool and instruction aid. It's about 8 or 9 inches in diameter and fits nicely in a book, folder or guitar case. I've been playing guitar for 13 years, been in bands, played on many stages with some well known players, took lessons as a kid, took music classes, today I teach guitar.
I bought the Guitar Wheel on GuitarWheel.com for $14.99 plus small shipping and handling. I bought it because it looked interesting as a songwriting tool and to help me better understand music theory.
http://www.guitarwheel.com
The Guitar Wheel is the best thing I ever laid eyes on. It's two sides make it valuable to any musician. It should have been called Music Theory Wheel, or could also be called the Piano Wheel. It is more than just a circle of 5ths (fifths) wheel, way more. It shows chords, notes, scales, chord fingerings, chord progressions for every key, inversions, transposing and much more. Definitely a great teaching aid, study tool for anyone learning music theory, in school, colleges or just on your own. The Guitar Wheel has loads of music theory, as much info as many books on the subject. Just turn the wheel to select any key and sit back and be amazed at the amount of information it's giving you. Brain overload? At first yes maybe. But the patterns of music theory begin to reveal themselves and you realize how its possible to actually learn all that info and since I am a visual type learning, it's really helped me remember a lot of music theory when I am writing songs or just jamming on guitar for hours. The Guitar Side of the Guitar Wheel is actually like a map of the guitar fretboard. You can see chord patterns on top of the strings and frets of the guitar. This is the best illustration of music theory on the guitar I've seen on a non electronic device. (One thing I don't like about computer programs and iPhone apps is always having to mess with the computer screen). The Guitar Wheel goes with you wherever you go, no power switch, and no batteries. It's always on! Did I mention it only cost $14.99. The Piano side, named so because of the piano keyboard reference on the back, has a lot of great scales information on it. Analyze the major scale, minor scale, pentatonic, blues. I can work out modes easily on it because I know them, even though it actually does not name the modes …hmm maybe a Guitar Wheel2. The piano side could easily speak music theory to a piano player or any musician. Maybe if they flip it over to the Guitar Side they will learn some things about the way a guitar works and get interested in guitar.
What's not to like… it cost less than a guitar lesson, less than most theory books but has all the info in one place. I can turn to it for quick direction, answers, and since music theory follows patterns its helped me unlock my brain to see those patterns. It's not a book or a method so it can compliment any teacher or teaching method. It should not scare people off because of its complexity. Heck, other chord wheels I've researched have a lot less info and cost more, and don't look as cool as the Guitar Wheel. (I have both the Chord Wheel, and the EZ-Key Chord Calculator and they both pail in comparison to the Guitar Wheel, cost more too). If your bored and you must find fault in everything you could point to the small amount of instruction that comes with the Guitar Wheel. On the inside of the package are two very well illustrated pages called the Quick Start. I think the makers of the Guitar Wheel probably wanted you to spend most your time just digesting what the Guitar Wheel communicates, which it does in a way no book or pages of printed charts ever could. I think the point was to create one tool that clearly tells all the mystery of music theory. They accomplished that. This should on display at the Smithsonian. Therefore it's not really necessary to study a book when you can behold the Guitar Wheel. I don't think it's bad they did not include more instruction. The instruction given is more than adequate to learn how to get information from the Guitar Wheel. If it's not obvious to you how to use the Guitar Wheel, then God help you, I don't know that anything would make any more sense to you. A beginner to intermediate player would gain a lot from the Guitar Wheel. Even an advanced player would think it interesting inspiring. Although an advanced player should know just about all the info on the Guitar Wheel it could still be a gold mine of creative songwriting material. On GuitarWheel.com there are some pretty great players that endorse the Guitar Wheel.
Its made very well. The Guitar Wheel is plastic from what I can tell, it's held together by an eyelet and some tough adhesive. It says it's made in China. I've had mine for months now and it works like new. Spill your drink on it and just wipe it off. It's not going to break down like paper or cardboard.
The Guitar Wheel is a great music theory study tool or reference. Its very inspiring to sit and look at and try playing new scales or melodies I see on it. I can study every musical key, so why carry a fat book around? The piano side on the back has a great deal of music theory information.
guitar_teacher1983 rated this unit
on
2010-08-02.
