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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/

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