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Algorithms for musical avocation Photo by Steve Johnson Warren Sirota, a Jacksonville musician and computer programmer, designed software that makes it easier for musicians to learn favorite songs sitting right in front of their computers. Guitarist creates software to help in learning songs By DAVID PRESZLER Warren Sirota can trace the roots of his music software to a song: the Jimi Hendrix version of "All Along the Watchtower." "Thirty-two bars of the world's most perfect guitar playing," he says. A lifelong musician, the 47-year-old Jacksonville man wanted to learn the song's tricky guitar work. So he developed a computer program that slows the speed of music while maintaining the pitch -- allowing musicians to learn at their own pace. It also loops the passages, so musicians can practice portions of a song over and over again with ease. "This is a long-recognized need of musicians everywhere," says Sirota, a noted jazz guitarist who regularly plays around the Rogue Valley. "When I was learning to play there was the half-speed tape recorder. The half speed tape recorder turns every note to mush." Sirota -- a programmer and computer consultant with master's degrees in mathematics and electric composition -- broke down the math behind the music. He developed an algorithm to adjust the speed up or down without distortion. That algorithm is the centerpiece of two products, SlowGold and SlowBlast. And a couple of music industry heavyweights have taken notice. Last fall, Sirota's company, World Wide Woodshed, signed a deal with Cakewalk, a Cambridge, Mass., music software company, to include SlowBlast in its new Guitar Tracks software package, which was released in November. Earlier this month, it signed a distribution deal with sheet music printing giant Hal Leonard Corp. of Milwaukee, Wis. The deal gives SlowGold and SlowBlast a way into 5,000 music instrument dealers. Sirota developed the first version SlowGold about two years ago. The latest version of the program, which sells for $49.95, includes a real-time slowdown of music with studio quality sound. It has a pitch transposition feature that allows musicians to easily adjust the pitch of recordings to their needs. It also includes a database that makes it easier to track progress. SlowBlast is essentially an introductory version of SlowGold and sells for $19.95. Demos of the software are available on the company's Web site, www.worldwidewoodshed.com Since SlowGold was developed two years ago, Sirota says sales have been "modest." "It's been a bit of a struggle." Another company put out a similar program (which Sirota says is inferior) that reached retailers first and made it difficult for SlowGold to take hold. He's hoping the two deals -- and other potential alliances being discussed -- will ease its entrance to the market. "Given that obstacle, we needed partners," he says. The company also has launched a unique packaging plan. Rather than a traditional, shrink-wrapped box, SlowGold and SlowBlast will be distributed in booklets the size of sheet music. "Music instrument stores don't know what to do with software boxes," he says. "They don't know how to display them. But they know how to display sheet music." Sirota actually wrote his first music software before forming World Wide Woodshed, a partnership with two investors and only Sirota and his wife, Denise Forst, as employees. That program, called "Presto," identified any passage of music and played it over and over again at full speed. "People kept writing and would say, `If you could slow that down, you'd really have something,"' he says. He's spent the last 3 years doing that, getting some help along the way from other area programmers such as Ashland's Jim Young, who developed SlowBlast for the company. Sirota says the project has allowed him to fuse two of his loves, music and programming. He's also proud to have a program that enhances the lives of users. "This is a computer program that improves your skills when you go away from the computer," says Sirota, who often practices in a chair in front of the screen. "You take something away with you." And he says people who buy the programs tend to do just what he did: Settle in and take on an old favorite. "They go back and learn the songs they wanted to learn 20 years ago," says Sirota, who's spending his practice time on the tunes of legendary jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt. Today's Edition : News | Sports | Business | Weather | Tempo | Classifieds Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA