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This DVD slipped under my radar for a while before I noticed it one day on Amazon.com and promptly ordered a copy, I had previously bought and reviewed “Get Out Of My Yard” DVD and also owned his Intense Rock II on VHS many moons ago so I knew what to expect and knew it was going to be worth the money. Thankfully Paul has reverted to his bizarre recording style of using blue screen backgrounds which bleed into the reflections on the guitars and look very cheap and silly, much like the Intense Rock videos, the last DVD was far too serious. The musical interludes are pretty cool with Paul jamming on his 70’s Ibanez accompanied by his wife on hammond and the instruction is clear and concise as ever, oh and he has a whopping great white Randy Rhoads Marshall Stack with another Marshall head on top, not sure what that one is? anyone? Bueller?

Anyway the DVD is broken down song by song from the album “Silence Followed By A Deafening Roar” and small sections which Paul has obviously selected to cover as many different techniques as possible are discussed in detail and thankfully tabbed! Yes the tab is included on the DVD which is great and as a bonus the final section of the DVD is the Shred Annex which includes crazy licks in different keys to build up your shred vocabulary. If you are a fan of Paul Gilbert or you just want to learn some cool alternate picking, string skipped arpeggios or tapping then this is a great, fun video which inspires you to pick up your guitar immediately!

You may have seen recently that I reviewed the Ultimate Guitar: Speed Soloing Techniques by Andy James instructional DVD from Lick Library. Well Lick Library were kind enough to also send me Metal Edge: Metal Soloing Techniques Volume 2 by Andy James which is designed to increase your musical knowledge with an arsenal of licks and techniques including string skipping, sweep picking, tapping techniques, alternate picking, metal rhythm techniques using tracks written by Andy James himself. There are 3 tracks that Andy dissects, “Flight Of Icarus”, “Jump To Light Speed” and “Aftershock” you can get to the full performance of each of these tracks at any time on the DVD by going to the Performances section. The backing Jam Tracks for each of these are also available to download from the LickLibrary.com website.

This DVD has a different style of tuition to the “Speed Soloing” DVD being more performance based as Andy tackles each section of the track rather than concentrating on quick licks and riffs to illustrate a technique. This means that you are learning fairly large chunks at a time that encompass many different facets of Andy’s technique. “Flight of Icarus” (See video above) is a Neo-Classical sounding track that involves passages of alternate picking, arpeggios, string skipping and tapping in fact almost every technique that Andy uses. This is challenging in itself but is made even more tricky by the lack of Tabs which mean you need to memorise as you go. I mentioned this with my review of “Speed Soloing” but with this DVD it does involve a little more concentration because of the length of each example. This isn’t to say that the DVD is not useful though, the tracks are all fantastic studies and I feel like I learn more watching Andy James play for 5 minutes than I do sitting practicing for an hour!

The 2nd track “Jump To Light Speed” starts off with an incredible tapping and string skipping arpeggio section which is some of the scariest and most impressive guitar playing you are ever likely to see, and that’s just the opening 45 seconds! The next section launches into a super fast alternate picking section a la Paul Gilbert, in fact this track is very Racer X except with more tapping. Of course each section is broken down by Andy into bite size chunks and the excellent camera work shows in detail how each pattern should be played and of course the backing track is available from LickLibrary.com. I’d love to be able to play this one up to speed (although with a 3 week old baby in the house my time is incredibly limited!) it would certainly be an impressive track to have in your repertoire!

With each track you can choose to watch the complete performance or the broken down lesson section by section, that is you can choose Verse, Chorus and Main Solo etc. each lesson is subdivided into chapters which let you skip from each sub-section or pattern to make it nice an easy to navigate.

The final track again utilises all of the techniques discussed previously although this one has more of a metal chord based riff to begin with and a slow melodic passage before the shredding takes off and then it is alternate picking, sweep arpeggios with tapping and huge bends to really get your fingers hurting. There is also a multi-finger tapping section that is very Steve Vai, in fact it is similar to the intro to ‘Building The Church’ and a cool technique to learn, I guarantee it will impress your guitar playing friends.

Andy James is by far one of the most talented Metal shredders in the world and a great resource for learning how to construct instrumentals and guitar solos this DVD along with part 1 will definitely have you ripping up and down the fretboard with both hands in not time as long as you are prepared to realise that it will take a lot of time and practice to get anywhere near the level of his playing.

Metal Edge: Metal Soloing Techniques Volume 2 by Andy James on LickLibrary.com

Part 1 available from Amazon.com:

I first heard of StudioJams.com after seeing a video on YouTube with Joe Bonamassa jamming in a studio (see above), I was amazed at this intimate footage of the blues virtuoso so I wrote to StudioJams.com for more info on how they managed to create such fantastic Jam sessions and it seems I’ve been missing out for some time! The series has been broadcasting in the US on BET and BET J their digital Jazz channel for 5 seasons, how awesome is that. They were kind enough to send out a few episodes for me to watch seeing as we aren’t lucky enough to get the show in Australia. I just watched a few tracks from the best of series 1 DVD and have to say my favourite was of course G.E. Smith singing “Empire State Blues” featuring Joe Bonamassa playing his Gigliotti GT Custom. You get close up camera shots of everyone in the band because it is a totally controlled environment, a giant live room in a studio. The audio is obviously studio quality and perfectly mixed so you catch every nuance of every performance.

The cool thing about these episodes is that you also get some behind the scenes footage of the musicians talking before they jam together and some of the rehearsals which gives you an idea of how talented these guys are especially the Jazz guys, it sometimes sounds so rehearsed and yet the drummer may have just quickly pointed to the percussionist to play a solo so you can see a lot of improvisation not just in the solos but in the overall arrangements.

Each 1-hour episode features a diverse group of talented jazz and blues musicians, gathered together in a recording studio for the sole purpose of creating fresh, new music. Many are working with one another for the very first time.

So who can you expect to see? Well check out the Episode listings. Episode 1 features Tuck Andress and one of my favourite blues guitarists at the moment Derek Trucks on guitar and Victor Wooten on Bass. Episode 4 features legendary jazz guitarist Stanley Jordan. Episode 6 features Larry Carlton and Episode 8 features Vernon Reid and Derek Trucks together! I would like to see the entire Episode 29 with Joe Bonamassa as well as Episode 30 which features one of my favourite acoustic guitarists Peppino D’Agostino. Luckily I can, because StudioJams.com also have an online store where you can purchase individual tracks from the various Episodes as audio tracks or you can buy the DVD with all the tracks for $15 each, audio prices vary according to track length some of these jams go in excess of 10 mins!

So if you are unlucky like me and don’t get to see this show on TV check out the Ace Entertainment Inc YouTube channel for some high quality tracks from the Jam Episodes or if you would like an entire Episode head over to the StudioJams.com online store.

In September 2006 San Diego hosted the world premiere of Primal Twang: The Legacy of the Guitar - the first definitive theatrical journey through the guitar’s colorful and surprisingly controversial 3500-year history. This performance was captured on film and combines onstage narration, video projections of rare historical footage and of course performances by living legends such as Doc Watson, Doyle Dykes, Albert Lee and Eric Johnson. I wasn’t actually aware that this was a narrated story but it makes for an interesting experience rather than just performance after performance and you get a brief history of the guitar through the ages starting from the early renaissance through to modern day. The 7 piece band onstage are all excellent musicians and are a perfect backup for the star guests throughout the story. Some of the standout performances are Eric Johnson’s epic version of his classic track “Cliffs of Dover” which has an incredible intro, as well as his cover of Hendrix’s “Bold As Love”. Also Albert Lee’s “Tear It Up” does just that and showcases his vocal and fretboard skills, he really is a classic country shredder! As the narration moves into Blues territory there is a great rendition of “The Sky Is Crying” by Jon Walmsley & The Primal Twang Band showing the introduction of slide guitar into Blues music. There is also a great Flamenco performance including an onstage Flamenco dancer which shows the evolution of folk music in Europe.

Aside from the main performance the DVD includes some special features including 7 bonus tracks from Eric Johnson, Doyle Dykes and Doc Watson, interviews with the guitarists including the Classical Gas composer Mason Williams and some behind the scenes footage.

I think that the idea for this performance was really great but a lot of the music is not really my thing I suppose what I would have really liked would be to have the real superstars of guitar contribute, like having someone like BB King in the Blues Section or Larry Carlton or George Benson in the Jazz section and Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck taking the story from the 60’s and upward but I imagine putting a show like this together is hard enough without getting all the big names!  Nevertheless this DVD is certainly worth checking out, go to Primal Twang’s website for more information or to order a copy.

I’ve reviewed quite a few Rock House Method DVD’s recently and watched even more and one of the most important things I find with these videos is how the guitarist featured teaches. What I mean by that is that some guitarists are more natural in front of the camera than others, Rob Arnold is one of these people. If you are a metal fan Rob Arnold is a great guitarist to study, if you’ve never heard his band Chimaira I highly recommend you check them out, their album Resurrection is awesome.

Rob has a very fun and relaxed style kind of like how Paul Gilbert presents, he not only explains every riff and technique in precise detail but he also shares stories of how he developed his playing style. I really like the fact that if he makes a mistake such as bending a note slightly sharp he comments on it rather than just pretending it didn’t happen, this gives the DVD a more human quality rather than just robotic perfection and this helps learners realise that even their heroes make mistakes sometimes!

Rob covers some of his favourite riffs all of which have been chosen to show different techniques like pull-offs, tremelo picking, artificial harmonics etc. He also breaks down songs such as the Chimaira song “Six” first demonstrating the rhythm part followed by the solo part, it shows how you can overlay guitar parts to create more texture.

Later on in the DVD Rob analyses an entire song so you can see the structure and how different riffs are put together to create a finished product. All the riffs are pretty tricky at full tempo as Rob has a very good picking technique but he does play them slowly to give you a chance to get to grips with it as you are learning.

One of the final things Rob shows how he created a 2 handed tapping solo around a rhythm that he came up with. Aside from a good tapping example its nice to see Rob showing the rhythm first tapping on his leg, this is something I think all guitarists should do when trying to come up with interesting riffs and something I have always talked about to learner guitarists since seeing this same advice from the Paul Gilbert Intense Rock video when I was learning guitar. First you come up with a rhythm, then you apply different notes to it until you hit upon the perfect riff.

Finally the DVD closes with some of Rob’s practice routines to build speed and dexterity which will help play his riffs with the kind of precision that he does. They are all based around alternate picking and are a good foundation for any guitarist no matter what style.

Of course all of the examples are included in the tab book that comes with the DVD and the backing tracks are available on the Rock House Method accompanying support website along with some useful tools like an online tuner.

http://www.myspace.com/chimaira
http://www.chimaira.com

For info on Rob’s signature guitar check out my Guitar Noize post from February.
http://www.guitarnoize.com/blog/comments/chimaira-signature-esps/

This instructional DVD from Rock House Method is subtitled “X-Treme Strength & Technique Training” that should give you some indication about the content of this video. The instructor is John McCarthy who is one of the founders of Rock House Method and has developed a set of 3 exercise routines designed to build picking and left hand fingering speed and accuracy as well as finger strength and dexterity.

Routine 1 begins with some simple alternate picking exercises and hammer-on and pull-off examples and move on to some more difficult exercises that help to isolate all of your left hand fingers and fingering combinations. The routine finishes with an alternate picked Minor Pentatonic pattern which is then transposed across the 5 Pentatonic patterns which is also a useful pentatonic scale memorising exercise.

Routine 2 expands on the first starting with more advanced picking patterns and scale exercises. John also has a couple of tricky exercises named “The Killer” and “Finger Crusher” the first is a chromatic pattern to get your fingers used to crossing strings using an awkward fingering pattern which helps build strength and coordination and the “Finger Crusher” moves a pentatonic pattern 2 strings at a time up and down the neck. There are also exercises that just isolate your 3rd and 4th left hand fingers which is something most guitarists need to do from time to time.

Routine 3 takes the first 2 lessons a step further with advanced legato runs, incorporating open strings into patterns and string skipping pentatonic licks. There is also a monster exercise called simply the “Classical Exercise” which brings together all of the exercises into something more musical, don’t worry all of these exercises are included in a tab booklet with the DVD.

This DVD is meant to apply to players of all levels but I think that Beginner to Intermediate players will find this DVD the most useful, advanced players will already know a lot of these exercises or will create some themselves. “Rock House Method - Hands Of Steel” is available through RockHouseMethod.com for $19.99 but at the time of writing is priced at $16.99 which is a pretty reasonable price.

As with all Rock House Method DVD’s the purchase also enables access to the online resources for each DVD as well as the forums and software such as a guitar tuner and metronome.

I have been playing guitar now for 20 years so I can barely remember those initial exciting months of learning guitar and having taught kids when I was 16-18 have a good understanding of just how difficult it is to be an effective teacher. What John McCarthy has done for Rock House Method is to create a 3 part DVD series called “Learn Rock Guitar” that takes you through the various stages of development with enough material for you to expand on in your own time and take you from Beginner to Intermediate and finally to the Advanced DVD.

As you would probably expect the first DVD concentrates on how to hold a pick, how to fret a note and then how to play the basic open major and minor chords and some simple strumming patterns and progressions. That alone is enough to keep most beginners going for a while but John also moves on to Barre chords, Pentatonic scales and finger exercises to build up finger strength. Toward the end of the DVD John combines all of this into a Rock rhythm and solo. This is a great foundation video to help complete beginners get started and also to start understanding how music works, music theory isn’t an easy subject to comprehend and this video helps to ease the student in without going into so much detail as to confuse them.

The intermediate DVD expands on the first with more Pentatonic patterns and exercises and includes Hammer-ons and Pull-offs and introduces string bending exercises using the Minor Pentatonic scale. John also expands the students Chord vocabulary and works on some rhythmic variations which gives the student a chance to use these chords and rhythms to start experimenting on their own. Also on this DVD are some workout exercises which include “The Killer” and “The Finger Crusher” which as you would expect combine some tricky finger combinations and alternate picking moving up and down the fretboard. While not the most exciting things to play they are really helpful to build up spee, accuracy and dexterity, in fact these exercises are useful to advanced guitar players too. This video also introduces some arpeggios, advanced lead lines including 2 handed tapping and some more scales such as the Blues and Natural Minor scales. Probably the most exciting part of this video for beginners is that there are 2 examples to learn of actual Rock songs, the rhythm and intro to Guns ‘N Roses classic track “Sweet Child ‘O Mine” and Metallica’s “Fade To Black” which gives the Student something to work towards, I remember how excited I was when I could finally play along to one of my favourite rock tracks! (I think it was “Can I Play With Madness” by the way).

The 3rd and final DVD in the series as you would expect expands further on the first 2 with pentatonic and minor scale examples that span the entire fretboard which help the students to break out of position when improvising. John also expands on the two handed tapping technique by providing a couple of Eddie Van Halen examples, Eruption and Hot For Teacher which are probably two of the best examples for learning tapping in my opinion. He moves on to show how to merge tapping and the scales you have already learned to play tapped pentatonics. There are more strengthening exercises, arpeggios and hammer-on and pull-off licks to help develop your technique as well as a couple of Mozart Sonatas and to finish off the solo from “Mr Crowley” by Ozzy Osbourne (played by Randy Rhoads).

As a bonus each DVD features a 20 minute interview with John where he talks about how you can develop as a player, how to get started playing with other people and some background into John’s music.

As a learning guitarist you would be best to buy all 3 in the series to get a good head start to your guitar playing, then you can move on to more advanced videos from some of your favourite rock and metal guitarists to help take you to the next level. This series would certainly make a nice Christmas present to someone who may be starting out playing guitar.

Check out http://rockhousemethod.com for more information and to purchase a DVD online.

I’ve probably said this before so stop me if I have, oh you can’t ah well, when I started playing guitar waaaaaay back in the late 80’s instructional videos were on VHS cassettes which meant it was a linear experience. You had a certain amount of control such as slow motion playback, rewind and fast forward and of course pause but the more you did all this the more the tape wore out and you ended up with noise lines all over the picture! Also the audio quality was pretty questionable to start with compared with today’s standards and that also deteriorated if you kept watching the tape over and over! These days of course instructional DVDs have much more to offer and Rock House Method have created some great products for Rock and Metal guitarists from beginner to advanced. I will cover some of the other titles in the coming weeks but I’d like to start with the DVD that caught my attention recently “Fretboard Autopsy” by shredmeister Rusty Cooley.

Fretboard Autopsy is a 2 DVD series that can be purchased separately or if you would like to save a few bucks as a package deal in the Rock House Method online store, you will save $15 buying both at the same time. So what is it? Well as the title suggests Rusty has created a complete tutorial to help you visualise the fretboard by first playing all 7 modes moving up the fretboard (which is also included in a tab booklet inside the DVD cover) and then by creating patterns that overlap the different 3 note per string mode patterns to help you see the relationships. Now don’t expect this series to be an in-depth tutorial on Rusty’s incredible speed shredding style, you do get to see a lot of his techniques as he plays the examples up to speed (and I mean speed!) but he doesn’t dwell on the technical points of his playing, this video is purely mode examples to help you get out of the box positions. Once he has finished going through all the modes Rusty introduces some patterns which use 12 notes in the root position and then shift up to the next position for the next 12 notes. Now you could quite easily play these examples and not realise what you have just done but Rusty keeps emphasising how you are shifting up and using notes from the next mode position again to help you visualise the modal patterns and make you realise how easy it is to move around the fretboard. Another set of patterns Rusty uses are the modes minus the 7th which creates a set of repeated 6 note (3 notes per string) patterns which are simple to memorise and have you leaping from the 3rd fret on the bottom E to the 12th fret on the top E without having to change your fingering. I wish someone had shown me these simple ideas when I was starting out it would have helped me get out of my pentatonic rut when it was time to improvise!

The second DVD takes the pattern based ideas further although there does seem to be quite a lot of overlapping content that is the same which I found a bit weird especially if you had bought the 2 DVDs separately. Anyway once you get past the repeated section there are some cool reverse linear patterns which I think every guitarist would find very useful and certainly help you move around the fretboard with much more confidence. These DVDs are no quick fix, as with any lesson it is a matter of digesting the material and then committing it to memory in every possible position, something I hate doing but I really need to! If you were to take everything on board in these videos you would have a pretty solid arsenal of patterns to use in your improvisations or riff writing.

UPDATE: Joe from Rock House Method updated me on why there is some overlapping content:
There are just a few things that purposely overlap, they have to just in case someone only purchased level 2, they must have the foundation for all the patterns and sequences in both. If someone just purchased level 1 or level 2 they would need this as the building blocks for each program.
Thanks for the update Joe, that makes sense.

Another nice feature of the DVDs are the extras that come as part of the package. First of all you get a 30 minute interview with Rusty Cooley, unfortunately both DVDs contain the same interview but it is very interesting and gives you some insight into Rusty’s influences and how he focussed on practice at an early age. At the end of the 1st DVD Rusty takes you through his gear and explains how he designed his signature RC7G 7 string Dean guitar too. You also get a Rusty Cooley music video to watch and you also get access to the Rock House Method online members area where you can access the forums, extra tabs, backing tracks and applications to help you out like a metronome and a guitar tuner.

These DVDs are aimed at guitarists with some theory knowledge you should know what modes are if you are to fully appreciate this course but it is not essential it may even teach you everything you need to know about modes in the process of watching. I think Intermediate and Advanced players would both benefit from this excellent series, Rusty is a good teacher who instructs clearly and concisely which, considering he is self taught shows how much of a natural musician he is. The only thing I find annoying is that Rusty has his guitar tuned down a half step for both videos, which although he explains and gives you the tuning notes for, if you are like me and have a floyd rose style trem you aren’t going to want to tune down to play along to the examples. I don’t really understand why he didn’t have his guitar setup to standard tuning just for the video.

Rock House Method
Rusty Cooley Official Site

Rock House Method issued a press release last week stating that the legendary Metal and Jazz master Alex Skolnick and Brazillian sensation Kiko Loureiro have signed up to do Instruction DVD’s too!

Back in May I gave 1 lucky person the chance to win a signed copy of the Tommy Emmanuel Live CD ‘Center Stage’ well to mark the release of the ‘Center Stage’ live DVD Guitar Noize is giving you the chance to win the entire catalogue of Tommy’s Favored Nations releases! Favored Nations is Steve Vai’s record label that includes guitar virtuosos on his books such as Eric Johnson and Andy Timmons, but also has an Acoustic artists section including Peppino D’Agostino and Pete Huttlinger.

The prize pack includes:

• Center Stage DVD
• Live At Her Majesty’s Theatre DVD
• Center Stage CD
• The Mystery CD
• Endless Road CD

And we’re not giving away 1 pack, we’re giving away 2 prize packs! All you have to do is head over to the Competition page and enter your name and email address to be in the running, simple!

The live ‘Center Stage’ DVD is fantastic by the way, it is one thing to listen to Tommy play but to watch him play tracks such as “Mombasa” (which has a great intro where Tommy uses his guitar as a drum kit!), Train To “Dusseldorf” which Tommy plays so effortlessly and Tall Fiddler which just makes you want to give up playing! Well ok, not give, aspire to play it like Tommy! The performance also features Harmonica extraordinaire Bob Littell who joins Tommy onstage for a few songs such as “Georgia On My Mind” and “Amazing Grace”. Tommy has an amazing amount of dynamics in his playing which really shows with his accompaniment of the songs with Bob Littell.

If you haven’t heard Tommy Emmanuel play before, check out his site which has a few YouTube links which showcase Tommy’s amazing talent. And what better way to get into Tommy than to win his entire Favored Nations back catalogue?

Tommy Emmanuel Competition page

If you are guitarist, and lets face it you’re at the wrong site if you’re not, you are going to love this DVD. Solidbodies the movie documents the greatest rivalry in guitar history, Fender Versus Gibson. The film includes interviews with Joe Bonamassa and vintage guitar guru George Gruhn and Henry Garza of the Los Lonely Boys, there is also little excerpt of a Joe Bonamassa gig playing his sparkly gold strat, which is funny considering Gibson just released the Joe Bonamassa Gold Top Les Paul! The film is only 50 minutes long so it moves along at a quick pace but there is a lot of interesting information about Gibson and Fender from the early days which I had no idea about such as the design of the Gibson SG, if you don’t know then you’ll just have to buy the DVD and find out! They talk about how the ‘59 Les Paul became the guitar that everyone wanted in the 60’s when it had temporarily ceased production and how the later 60’s Les Pauls still didn’t match the ‘59 so it became even more desirable. It also shows how the CBS takeover of Fender affected the quality and almost ruined the reputation of the Stratocaster and Telecaster until CBS finally sold the company and they made a comeback. There is also a section about how companies like Kramer eclipsed Gibson and Fender in guitar sales throughout the 80’s as players looked for guitars with a Floyd Rose and a modern look before the grunge scene put Kramer out of business! Of course Kramer is now owned by Gibson and focusses on cheap asian made (Korean maybe) instruments.

The film is very well shot and produced which is something that is sometimes lacking in independent films, they have obviously spent a lot of time on the details. There are a few clips of guitarists, Wes Jeans, John Roth and Steve Selvidge playing Les Pauls and Strats to show the difference between the Les Paul’s powerful humbucker sound and the Strat’s brighter twangier blues and country sound with a little bit rock as a nod to Hendrix. I would have liked the film to have been fleshed out with some concert footage from some of the great Strat and Les Paul players like Hendrix, Page etc. but I assume there were legal problems or licensing issues, thankfully Joe Bonamassa complied. I would also liked the film to have been longer as the running time is only 50 mins, I could have easily watched another hour and would have liked to seen some of the guitarists in question talking about their personal collections especially Joe Bonamassa but apart from that I think it is a great DVD and one that should be among every guitarists collection!

Check out http://solidbodiesthemovie.com for details on how to purchase the DVD.