With the books I always found myself wondering just what the heck the guitarist was actually doing with his hands to make the chord shapes. Or I'd lose the melody of the song and play as if I was typing the notes with no sense of rhythm at all. Sure there's a cd included with most books, but you then need to take your practice over to a cd player and since moving all my music to my computer, I just don't have one handy anymore.
With private lessons I solved those problems, but gained some new ones. You can buy a pretty nice guitar for what just a few months of lessons would cost you. Also, I'm incredibly shy about playing in front of people. Even though that's pretty much the whole point of having the teacher there I'd usually end up getting too nervous and uncomfortable to play along, and just try to cut the lesson short so I could go home to practice by myself. Also, when you're working with a teacher, you have to work on their agenda. Oh they'll say you're the boss, and that they can teach you whatever you'd like, but it never seems to work out that way. They always want you to work through this one book first, or do these theory exercises. And really, all you want to do is play something. Even just learning one little song to show your family and friends when they demand a performance. After all the lessons I took, all I knew was a couple chords with no clue of how to put them together, a couple scales, and a handful of blues solo leads that sound okay if you have a band behind you, and sound completely rubbish playing all alone.
So, after some thought about giving up on guitar altogether, I finally decided to take the plunge and try a lesson DVD. For me at least it solves all my problems. It's like having a teacher in the room, but you can pause him and make him go back whenever you like. Also,you don't have to feel like you're being judged, so you can be more comfortable. Sure you've got to put your practice space in front of a tv/dvd player.....but that works perfectly for my space. And once again, you've got to deal with the teacher's agenda. But in the case of a DVD, you can probably find one that suits your needs, and there's so many reviews on the net that you know what you're getting before you jump in. And hell, even at $30-$40 for most good lesson dvds, it's still cheaper than a 1-hour lesson so if you hate it, you're not out much. And if you love it, you're going to get way more than 1 hour out of the content.
Fingerpicking Guitar Techniques - Stefan Grossman
Because of a "Buy 3, get one free" deal on his site, I bought a bunch of DVD's all at once. The one I've started with is, Fingerpicking Guitar Techniques. If your intention is to learn blues fingerpicking, and even learn a few genuine songs along the way, this is a great place to start. I'll admit that I'm only 1 song in (going to move onto song 2 tomorrow), but I feel like I've made more progress in the last 2 weeks than I did in 2 years of lessons.
Let me break it down for you.
- The Teacher - Mr Grossman seems like the kindly uncle everyone wishes they had. He obviously has a great love of the blues, and traditional music, and he can play his ass off. But that's not the point of the video. Some vids (and even real-life teachers) seem like they're there as much to show off their amazing skills as they are to teach you. He starts out with some little exercises, then launches right into the first song that use the techniques he just taught.
- The material - One the two DVD's in this set the songs are: Volume One: Oh Papa, Shake That Thing, Death Come Creeping, Nobody's Dirty Business and Make Me A Pallet Of Your Floor Volume Two: Coffee Blues, Crow Jane, Oh Mary Don't You Weep, Delia, Old Country Rock and Will The Circle Be Unbroken. If you are a fan of the blues and traditional music, you will recognize a bunch of these songs by name. And even if you don't, check out the sample video clip at the site here, and see if you like it. That's the second song on the disc, and it sounds good.
- The Extras - Included in this set is a small TAB booklet. Most of the other sets have the TAB as a PDF file that you'd have to print off to have a hard-copy, but this one is printed for you. Stefan uses a slightly different tab style than you may be used to, but he explains it in the book and on the video, so it should take you about 30 seconds to adjust. Also, in addition to the lesson, there's footage of some of the classic blues fingerpickers on the disc. Honestly, that might be worth the purchase price alone. Some amazing stuff there.
In conclusion, I would highly recommend this disc. If you're looking to play guitar, and acoustic blues is what you want to play, this is a great starting point. On the website, there is a suggestion of what DVDs to get and in what order for a beginner. This is the first one, and I just can't wait to get through it to see what else I can learn. I'll be sure to update as I move along.
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