Yamaha EZ-EG Tutorial Electric Guitar

 An exceptionally poor tool for learning to play guitar
I've an advanced classical and rock guitarist, having played for 15 years. I have taught guitar lessons before.

This toy is marketed as an instrument to help learn guitar. I'd like to explain why it is overall a poor instrument. I played it for a few hours in stores, so this review is based on my experience with it.

First of all, here's what the toy can help you do. It can teach you fingerings. That is, it can teach you what frets to articulate when playing chords and scales. Unfortunately, it only goes up to the twelth fret, which will limit your ability to play on a normal electric guitar, which typically has 22 or 24 frets. These extra frets mirror the first 12 at an octave higher, but they also are quite a bit smaller, so adjustment to them isn't instantaneous. Learning to play solos involves learning not to have trip over one's fingers in the crowded upper frets. The EZ-EG cannot help you with that.

Here's why the instrument is a poor instructional tool. Playing guitar, even at a beginning level, requires more than simply learning fret positions. Guitar is a highly nuanced instrument. To play well, you need to learn how to perform a variety of articulations, such as slides, hammer-ons, pull-offs, bends, taps, mutings, vibrato, and more. Most of these are simply impossible to play on this toy. Note: Such skills need to be learned at the same time one learns basic fingering. They go together. You will severely handicap your playing style if you learn to play on this toy alone.

Even worse, the most difficult part of articulation for beginners is learning to put one's fingers in the right spot near the frets. This toy has you press a button instead. Thus, if you were to learn on this and then switch to a real guitar, you very likely won't be able to play. Instead, you'll produce string buzz, because you won't know how to position your fingers. You need to learn how hard to press, at one angle to press, and where to press, in relation to the fret. This takes a while, but it is vital that correct articulation in reference to the frets is learned as soon as possible. If you learn to play on this toy alone, you will handicap yourself.

Thirdly, guitars have metal strings, often at high tensions, depending on what type of guitar you are playing. Beginners normally say that the strings make their fingers hurt. An important part of the learning process is to practice until one develops calluses, so that one can slide one's fingers on the strings all day without pain. Again, if you learn to play on this toy by itself, you will not be able to play a real guitar.

Fourth, the toy sounds bad, like a cheap Yamaha keyboard. For a guitarist like myself, it was fun to play the synth sounds in the store where I saw this, but they were of low quality. If you are looking for a guitar synth, buy a Roland synth and pick-up system.

Fifth, an additional part of learning the guitar is learning to care for the instrument. A beginner needs to learn to tune strings, perform adjustments to the bridge, neck, and nut, and so on. Beginners frequently break strings, since they pick too hard, and it's important for them to learn proper right hand technique in reference to real strings. Tuning is especially important, because it helps the beginner learn what is known as relative pitch.

Overall, then, learning to play using this toy in isolation is counterproductive. A beginner will learn bad technique that must be unlearned when she switches to a real instrument.

If you wish to buy it as a beginning guitarist, please make sure you purchase a real instrument at the same time, and practice primarily on that. I do not dispute that this toy can help you learn scales, but that's all it can do. By the way, there are real guitars with LED inlays that will teach you scales and chords, too, without having all of the potential for disaster this toy has.

For this purchase price of the EZ-EG, you could acquire a decent low-end electric guitar, string it with .08 gauge strings (which are quite easy to play), and be off to a good start.

 Fun to play with, a little harder to master
I am not a guitar player. I like the EZ-EG because I can fool around with it and not worry about tuning, breaking strings and scratching it. The strings are pretty thick and don't strum as easy as a real guitar. The different sounds are diverse enough, but many sound more like a keyboard than a guitar.

I really have a hard time making my fingers match the lighted chords. They don't start with easy ones and many chords are just plain impossible for me to do with my apparently short fingers. I wish they had some easier chords to start off with.

I downloaded the free songs and they are fun to strum along with. Its really just a toy for me, as I don't have enough time to take real lessons. I have a very nice Acoustic Guitar but I have never been able to get it tuned properly, even by some Pro's. This is a nice compromise, and it has a volume control.
Batteries don't last long and the AC adapter cord is short - get some rechargable batteries.

 fun toy for beginners
This is definitely one big toy. But I am having a blast with it so far (it is day 3). I tried to start with a real electric guitar but that was too overwhelming. I have some knowledge of chords but little innate talent. So a tutorial guitar is just what I need to have fun and practice the basics. This is not a substitute for lessons though. You will only learn some rhythm guitar from the midi stuff. Also, you have to let go of any feeling of not liking the midi sound. Still, if you don't have a band, it's nice to strum along to something. I figure if I can learn all of the chords changes programmed into the guitar, I will have a decent background for picking out my favorite tunes. So in sum, the drawbacks are you can't slide down the neck because of the keys, you won't learn any picking from the tutorials and while you get 10 free midi songs from the website, the rest are priced around $6 a shot. Also the tremolo attachment impedes any sort of flashy follow through action with your right hand (but the tremolo comes off easily). I almost forgot to mention that I had a lot of difficulty getting the software to work from the url given in the packaging. After many error messages, I ended up searching for a windows xp update for both the midi usb driver and "song filer" the program used by yamaha to download songs onto your guitar. Even though I can't read Japanese, I went to a Japanese site and bless 'em cuz everything worked like a charm! The strong points are the many sounds you can choose from including 12-string (even though there are only 6 strings), overdrive and distortion. You can just play your own thing or practice one of the programmed selections. The electronic capo is really cool and the tempo adjuster is helpful. I haven't tried alternate tuning yet. But I'm sure it will be fun once I get the hang of it. I will try to write more after more time has passed. All in all, I'd recommend this for someone who isn't ready for the real thing yet and likes electronic gadgets.

 great guitar alternative for medically challenged fingers
I was a professional guitar player for years, 20 years ago (closer to 30 years ago) and had to give it up due to insulin dependent diabetes. The damage of 4-5 times a day of finger sticks to test blood sugars and the infections caused by the callouses of many daily hours of playing were just too great for my body to overcome. I haven't been able to play guitar since.

I found this guitar while shopping at a Sharper Image store and was instantly hooked. It doesn't create any pressure on my fingers at all, because the electronic keypads only require a very light touch. It does not have the feel of a real guitar and can't begin to pick up the nuances of play from real strings, but if you are unable to play a regular guitar for whatever reason, it's a great alternative.

The guitar does go momentarily slightly out of tune every time a new chord is played, but it only lasts 1 or 2 seconds and unless you are acutely aware of tone values, probably won't notice the difference, it self tunes immediately. It is easier to pick out songs than a regular guitar because the steel pickup doesn't vibrate the way a regular string will, hence your picking can be both truer and faster than with a regular guitar and no buzzing of strings either.

For a beginner, I can see this as having a fast learning curve, but will probably create some problems with transferring onto a regular guitar because as long as you hit the correct frets, it will give you true sound, which on a regular guitar will never happen unless the correct amount of pressure and the correct fingering is taking place.

I don't know how durable this instrument will be long term but I am currently deeply in love (again).