Guitar Noize - guitar news, crazy guitar designs and cool guitar videos

If you follow my constant barrage of Twitter updates (and if you don’t you really should http://twitter.com/guitarnoize) you may have seen a couple of links to these GEMS videos, GEMS stands for Guitar Experts Master Series and is a new upcoming set of instructional video series for learning guitar featuring Eli Santana and James J LaRue from the band Holy Grail. Here is an excerpt from the latest press release:

Are you ready to take your metal to the next level? Meet GEMS, The Guitar Expert’s Master Series, a new, unpretentious guitar instructional series featuring “Holy Grail” shredders James J LaRue and Eli Santana.

Combining prodigious guitar expertise with inexplicable idiocy, GEMS is perhaps the most triumphant series of guitar lessons ever produced in the history of man. The free GEMS “shreducation” begins here: http://www.youtube.com/user/GEMSguitar

This series takes the arrogance out of instructional videos and injects a bit of fun and humour while teaching you everything you need to known in order to be a heavy metal shredmeister, it is a kind of Paul Gilbert meets Steel Panther mashup. I think it is great that someone is having a bit of fun while teaching instead of just going through some technical examples and I look forward to seeing more from these guys.

Holy Grail’s MySpace page - http://www.myspace.com/holygrailofficial

With only a few weeks until Christmas I thought it would be a good idea to post a few ideas either to forward on to your family/wife/kind friends or for you to buy for a guitar loving someone.

Live DVDs

Joe Bonamassa live from the Royal Albert hall

Click here to buy the DVD

Steve Vai - Where The Wild Things Are

Guitar Instruction

Rock House Method
Metal Guitar - Song Writing, Riffing and Soloing with Rob Arnold of Chimaira

Lick Library Learn To Play Stevie Ray Vaughan

A TrueFire.com online instructional course

Click here to check out TrueFire’s online courses

Or if you would prefer, GuitarInstructor.com offer gift cards for their online lessons so the person you buy for can pick and choose.

Maybe I’m too young (that would be a first) or maybe it is because Mountain weren’t very popular in England but I had not heard of Leslie West until he supported Joe Satriani on his US leg of the Professor Satchafunkilus tour. This seems even stranger when you consider that Leslie was an influence on a young Joe Satriani.

This DVD, like the Mark Tremonti DVD I reviewed last week is part documentary, part instructional DVD and as you might have guessed is produced by the same company Fret12. The DVD comes with a tab booklet that includes all the examples that Leslie plays and it is clearly indicated on screen so you know which number to flick to. In all there are 14 exercises covering; Favorite Fretboard Patterns, Getting a Tone, String Stretching, Playing the Blues, Major vs. Minor Contrast, Songwriting Arranging & Melody, Importance of the Riff, Chords and Tension Notes, Soloing, Improvisation and more. Now 14 exercises doesn’t sound much but there is 2 1/2 hours of footage on this DVD so you can be sure that Leslie doesn’t just skip from example to example with no explanation.

There are special guest appearances by Zakk Wylde, Joe Satriani, Mark Tremonti and Corky Laing who talk about why Leslie has influenced them and as per usual Zakk acts the clown! I don’t think Zakk Wylde has given a serious interview in his life, Leslie seems to share the same sense of humour too.

Leslie as you probably know has a signature Dean guitar which leads me to my favourite part of the DVD, being such a guitar nerd, an extensive Dean Guitars USA Custom Shop Factory tour. This tour shows everything from how bookmatched body slabs sawn and glued together to the CNC machines that are used to cut the necks. This is a fascinating and unique look into the technology and secrets behind the Dean USA Custom guitars construction. You also get to see the custom pickups that are used in his signature guitar and how they are wound. Aside from the Dean factory tour there is also a look at Leslie’s Signature Budda amps with Budda’s head designer who explains how his amps are configured.

I honestly think that this should be a feature of every guitar instructional DVD. I think the artist should explain why they chose the guitar they are playing and what amps and effects they use to achieve their various rhythm and lead tones. It takes years to learn by trial and error, this helps cut that time down.

For more information check out www.fret12.com.

This DVD is an interesting take on instructional DVD’s as it offers not only lessons from Alter Bridge and Creed guitarist Mark Tremonti but also guest lessons from Michael Angelo Batio, Troy Stetina, Rusty Cooley, Myles Kennedy and Bill Pick. But aside from the extra guest lessons there are also in-depth interviews with the man himself as well as a tour of his touring rig, from amps to effects to guitars which I always love to see. The lessons are broken up into sections such as Vibrato, Legato and Picking all of which Mark is a master, his picking and legato speed is pretty amazing. There are also breakdowns of 8 complete solos from Alter Bridge’s Blackbird album. In all there are 3 hours of footage in total on this DVD including live footage and alternate camera angles on selected lessons. The DVD also comes with a TAB booklet to help you play along with Mark’s examples and compositions. Mark also takes the chance to talk about his signature wah pedal, the Morley Tremonti Wah and of course his signature guitars from Paul Reed Smith which is a very cool looking guitar, I’ve always been a fan of the PRS Singlecut models.

My only criticism is the section on open tunings for acoustic guitar. While I think teaching open tunings is certainly useful especially for composition inspiration Mark’s fingerstyle technique is, how can I put this politely, quirky. I have been classically trained and had my right hand technique corrected when I started my music degree at the Birmingham Conservatoire which at the time was tedious but absolutely necessary. Mark’s use of only his thumb and 1st finger is very limiting and I think it should have had some mention of correct technique and maybe not a close up camera angle, remember this is an instructional DVD and kids learn by example.

Aside from this small criticism this is an excellent DVD and an interesting format, you certainly get your money’s worth for $39.95 and if you are an Alter Bridge fan you get plenty of footage and insight into Mark’s career.

Buy the DVD at Fret12.com.

Alter Bridge official site.

You will have probably heard Gus G’s name mentioned recently when he replaced Zakk Wylde at BlizzCon 2009, before playing with Ozzy Gus was famous for playing with Firewind. Now Gus G has joined the ever growing list of talent on Rock House Method’s books as an instructor. Here is the info from the Press Release:

Rock House, the leader in music instruction, announced today that Gus G., founding member and driving force behind the band Firewind, has joined Rock House’s roster of master instructors. Gus is the guitar wunderkind who recently can be seen performing live with the prince of darkness himself, Ozzy Osbourne.

“Gus plays with a great sense of melody and when he combines his technical chops and tone, out comes mind blowing riffs,” said Joe Palombo, Executive Director of Rock House. “More than just a shredder, Gus really plays with tremendous amounts of feel. His work with Firewind and Dream Evil show his has incredible writing abilities and versatility.”

With production slated to begin in November 2009, details of the programs are still being finalized with Gus; but you can bet that Rock House will take an in-depth look at his technique, how he constructs his leads, how he writes melodies and harmonies, and much more. This new Rock House product featuring Gus G. is scheduled for release in May 2010. Stay tuned to http://www.RockHouseMethod.com, http://www.myspace.com/gusgofficial, http://www.firewind.gr and http://www.myspace.com/firewind for more details.

Gus’ Rock House instructional product will be available at MI retailers around the world for $24.99. All Rock House instructional products are distributed through Hal Leonard Corp. 1-800-554-0626. Each on of Gus’ DVDs will come with a FREE tab lesson booklet, iPod ready video and membership to Rock House’s lesson support site at www.RockHouseMethod.com. This feature, exclusive to Rock House and its partners, offers students supplementary support for the lessons featured on the DVDs.

www.RockHouseMethod.com
http://www.firewind.gr

If you are like me, and thousands of other guitarists out there, you probably fall into the rut of playing the same old pentatonic licks you have been cranking out for years when improvising over a blues progression? Sound familiar? Well Chuck D’Aloia is the man to help you out, his instructional DVD “Blues With Brains” is specifically designed to help you break out of the box patterns and play a little less B.B. King and a little more Larry Carlton.

I should say by the way that this course is available as a download and iPod version so it is not strictly just a DVD! Anyway, all the examples are in A so there is continuity with the examples and don’t confuse you once Chuck moves onto more complex ideas. Blues With Brains starts out with a simple progression but showing you how to enhance the Minor Pentatonic over certain chords in the progression with altered notes that fit over the 7th and 7#9 chords. These are actually very simple examples to understand as they only change 1 note from the Minor Pentatonic per chord, so it is only a case of remembering when to substitute an E for an Eb and when to substitute an A for a G#. What Chuck keeps reinforcing is the need to learn the different Pentatonic shapes so that you can switch between different keys without changing position which will enable a more musical transition.

Chuck plays examples over backing tracks throughout to illustrate his enhanced blues ideas and his playing is really enjoyable to listen to, he has really great phrasing so rather than just playing the scale patterns up and down he adds his own personality and while you and I might not quite have the same level of improvisation skill as Chuck, it certainly seems achievable. Chuck doesn’t go at such a speed that will leave your head spinning with the theory either, it is all taught in a very cool laid back style.

One of my favourite parts of Blues With Brains is Chuck’s Diminished examples, I love the way that when he plays the first example he smiles and says “now that’s fancy right?”, yes it is, very fancy. That is exactly the kind of lick that will pop into my head when I’m improvising and I don’t know how to put it down on the fretboard so I end up doing some lame long bend instead. These Diminished examples are pretty inspiring because although they sound complicated because of the way the fretboard is laid out they are simple symmetrical patterns.

The download included 5 backing tracks which are featured throughout, so you can watch, listen and learn from the master before jamming over the backing tracks yourself and try to include some of the lessons learned. I particularly love the 5th jam track, it has that funky Steely Dan thing going on and is a perfect playground for trying out some Symmetrical licks.

Amazingly the download including those 5 backing tracks is a mere $25 which considering you are getting 1 hour and 15 minutes private tuition is an absolute bargain and is very simple to order using Paypal from the Blues With Brains section of his website. There is also an iPod version which is only $10. The download process is simple, once you have paid Chuck will send you a set of links using the popular service YouSendIt which will enable you to download the large files, be prepared though the main movie is 1.6Gb download.

For more information about Chuck and his tuition courses and his album Circle 7 head over to http://chuckdaloiamusic.com.

Update: Chuck just told me some extra info which I want to include:

The iPod version and an iTunes movie are now included in the download option. Using one of these allows you to download faster and see the lesson. Then you can download the QuickTime version overnight or when you have time. The download links stay up for 14 days.