Need your help!

[Robert****]

I am putting together more instructional material, and I need your feedback. Please tell me what you would most like to see in an instructional DVD (or several). I will likely make more than one DVD, so there could be of course different difficulty levels, where you should know the material in the first DVD before you can really take advantage of the second DVD, etc.

You could mention how you prefer the material presented, how lengthy it should be, etc. Maybe there could be a jam video, where I play rhythm guitar and you play solo, then we switch after a while?!

The more you can tell me, the better! Thanks a lot!

[warren0728]

i think your first dvd should be all about SHREDDING!!!

just kidding....in my opinion instruction on improvisational playing would be great. I enjoy learning "licks" and stuff but to learn more about why licks work and how to create your own "on the fly" would be great.

My weakness (among many) is listening to a backing track or something and knowing where to play and what notes work well with where i am playing on the fret board.

I would love to be able to pick up my guitar....turn on a tune...and play along.

I know that is a tall order but ....you asked!

THE BEST THING would be to have a fretters weekend where we all meet somewhere and jam with you as we learn! HHHMmmmm everyone wants to go to disney world so we could have it here!!! I bet flights here would be around the cheapest as flights anywhere else! we could dpo a seminar at Ron's Music Shack, dinner and a show at the House of Blues....

ww

ww

[Spudman***]

I would like to see covered in some depth how to play different modes or scales or tonalities or whatever of a same set of changes. Like when some players are playing a pentatonic scale over a I-IV-V and then switch midstream into some wild jazz modes. How do you do that and make it sound correct?

[Guitar-Chris]

Robert, for me a mixture of scales (with some theory), licks and riffs would be great.

As i allready (ok, after 20 years ) know the different patterns of the blues pentatonic scale, in the moment I'm stuck with connecting the different patterns, e.g. a lick that goes from pattern I to III, back to II and then to IV, if you know what I mean.

So a set of lessons could be a complete song, with chords or a riff, the solo usin 2 to 3 Patterns, and then again the riff, perhaps in differnet forms. So you have a better aim for doing the differnet steps (lessons).

So in the end you will have some kind of this:

1. Lesson: Some exercise in chords / riff
2. Lesson: the set of chords / riffs.
3. Lesson some exercise in 2 to 3 patterns
4. A short solo using the patterns.
5. The whole song.

And think of finding a cheap way for ordering your DVD from Europe

@warren: Ok, i would suggest we meet at the next Frankfurt Musik Fair in April next year. Then you can have a look at all that gear, and for me the flight is cheaper.

[Robert****]

Chris, I don't quite understand. By pattern, do you mean the "box" as in Pentatonic boxes?

Could you for each of your 5 suggestions expand on each, and clarify what you mean?

[Guitar-Chris]

Chris, I don't quite understand. By pattern, do you mean the "box" as in Pentatonic boxes?

Could you for each of your 5 suggestions expand on each, and clarify what you mean?

Hey, why do I write on an english speaking board? This makes things so complicated for me

Ok, I will give it a try.

Yes I use pattern as a synonym for boxes, at least I think so. So the first pattern is fom lowest E to highes E 1-4, 1-3, 1-3, 1-3, 1-4, 1-4, ok, the second pattern, 2-4, 1-4, 1-4, 1-3, 2-4, 2-4. and so on.

Now to the lessons:

1. Lesson: Some exercise in chords / riff
Perhaps the riff has 4 bars. You will teach each bar after the other, and perhaps an exercise to learn this bar (e.g. play it forward and backward, hey you're the teacher )

2. Lesson: the set of chords / riffs.
Show the whole riff

3. Lesson some exercise in 2 to 3 patterns
You have one lesson where you do an exercise in box 1. You can do things like this to other boxes /patterns.


4. A short solo using the patterns.
Use the learned patterns in a solo.

5. The whole song.
Play the whole song. Perhaps you will give the posibility to download the backing to play along.

[warren0728]

@warren: Ok, i would suggest we meet at the next Frankfurt Musik Fair in April next year. Then you can have a look at all that gear, and for me the flight is cheaper.

sounds like a great plan to me!! got a website link? I checked airfare from here to super swedes neck of the woods during the time clapton is playing there and it was quite expensive....amybe we should meet in the middle!

ww

[r_a_smith3530]

I agree with what Spudman had to say. I've seen Duke Robillard do just that, start with the basic pentatonic box thing and then switch to those jazzy feeling mode changes, and it's not exactly easy to pick up.

[marnold***]

I'd like to see that girl from Florida involved somehow

[warren0728]

I'd like to see that girl from Florida involved somehow

lol....there are lots of them here....just have to head for one of the coasts....

Hey robert...are those dvd's done yet?

ww

[ray82609]

What I would really like to learn is phrasing, I just don't know if it can be taught. I know the notes I just don't know when and how long, where to rest, etc.
-Ray

[ZoSo65]

Tab the work, on the DVD's and your site. I'm sure it would help a lot of people understand it a little easier.

[Tim]

St. Augustine Beach has tons of those girls, and they don't wear that T shirt about being flat. They are out there already getting their weekend tans. I just love the spring and summer time in Florida.

[tot_Ou_tard]

Tab the work, on the DVD's and your site. I'm sure it would help a lot of people understand it a little easier.

I second the TAB suggestion. I think taking someone bit by bit through some cool blues grooves would be nice. As others have suggested some explanation of how to jam (improvise) would be helpful!

[ZoSo65]

St. Augustine Beach has tons of those girls, and they don't wear that T shirt about being flat. They are out there already getting their weekend tans. I just love the spring and summer time in Florida.

Hmm, might just have to come down and visit ya' Tim!

[warren0728]

St. Augustine Beach has tons of those girls, and they don't wear that T shirt about being flat. They are out there already getting their weekend tans. I just love the spring and summer time in Florida.

me too tim...time to visit some of my clients on the east coast!

ww

[ZoSo65]

me too tim...time to visit some of my clients on the east coast!

ww

Clints with a "flat" t-shirt or "raised relief" t-shirts??!!!

[Spudman***]

Ray

For phrasing practice singing. Then sing and play the same thing on the guitar, at the same time if you can. Like scatt singing that jazz musicians do. Try nursery rhymes or any little simple ditty like "Row Your Boat." Sing it and play it at the same time if you can.

Phrasing should or could be like talking or having a conversation. You use your musical vocabulary (licks, chops, whatever) and make sentences and stories by stringing them together. Just beware the run-on sentence. Take breaths. No breaths = no phrasing. Breaths are no notes ie. no playing, silence.

If you do exercises like this you will develop you own unique phrasing which to me is far more interesting than having someone else's phrasing. If you are identical to someone else then I could listen to either one of you and hear the same thing, but if I want to hear what you have to say then it is going to be with your phrasing instead and that is unique.

[Tone2TheBone]

Great tip Spudster......