Jamming like Jimi? Get close with eMedia

What: eMedia Music, Seattle

Who: Adrian Burton, founder, president

Employees: 12

Fretware: The company offers software that teach people how to play the most popular and social of all modern instruments, the guitar. "No other instrument is as approachable or as ubiquitous," Burton said.

Financials: Burton. 38, said the company has $3 million in annual revenues and has been profitable for several years.

String fever: eMedia offers guitar training on two levels, with specialized products for keyboards, bass, rock guitar and blues guitar. It is about to expand into another level of difficulty with a violin program.

Master class: The idea for user-friendly musical software came to Burton while he worked at Microsoft's multimedia publishing division, and he decided to teach himself to play guitar. Good teachers were hard to find. Software, he reasoned, didn't have to suffer musical foolishness. One can repeat a passage as many times as needed without the "instructor" losing patience.

See me, tune me: eMusic software shows students where to put their fingers and how it should sound. It slows down to make the lessons more comprehensible and augments instructions with an animated fret board.

The best guitarist? Burton cites Jimi Hendrix's passion and his ability to connect with the audience. And while no software can teach someone with no natural talent to play like Jimi, "it will get you a lot closer than you might get otherwise," Burton said

Free Fallin': There is a time when people can't learn any more from a program and need to fly on their own. "We teach improvisation," Burton said. "Originality and creativity is up to the student. But if they don't have the tools to be creative, like the ability to play scales, it will be much harder."

— Charles Bermant