Guitar DVDs

Karl Hungus

Thought I'd start a thread about Guitar DVDs (And VHS if you so will) which could be great for recommendations, or telling people how you got on/what you've learned.

Personally, I've got the John Petrucci "Rock Discpline" and Michael Angelo "Speed Kills" DVDs, and Marty Friedman's "Melodic Control" on VHS. I'm also getting Marty Friedman's "99 Secret Lead Guitar Phrases" DVD for christmas.

Both John Petrucci's and Michael Angelo's DVDs are very heavy on technique and excersizes, where as Marty Friedman's is more geared towards feeling and expression. I think they've all been a big help to me, especially Speed Kills, which has definetly helped with my picking technique, which was extremely poor beforehand. Petrucci's DVD was also a huge help with my timing, which again, was rather poor.

Anyway, I seem to be digesting more and more lessons and technique these days, so is there anything of interest anyone there would care to recommend? I think next on my list to get would be Paul Gilbert's "Guitars From Mars" so if anyone has heard anything about that, or had any experience with it, let us know.

Rustar

For guitar I have:

50 Licks Blues Style - Mat Gurman (awesome)
50 Licks Jazz Style - Bruce Buckingham
Beyond Basics Fingerstyle Solo Guitar - Mark Hanson
Berklee Chop Builder for Rock Guitar - 'Shred Lord' Joe Stump
Rock House Advanced Metal Riffs - John McCarthy
In The Style of Van Halen - Curt Mitchell (good)
In The Style of Stevie Ray Vaughan - Curt Mitchell (good)
Robben Ford - Playin' The Blues (good)

For Bass:
Rock House New Dimensions for Bass - Doug Wimbish (good)
Slap Bass The Ultimate Guide - Ed Friedland (awesome)

Johnny Storm

Only one I've ever seen is Eric Johnson's Total guitar (from the 80's judging by the way he's dressed). Amazing guitarist but he's so many levels above my head that I didn't find it particularly educational.

gizmo

I have...

John Petrucci - Rock Discipline
Paul Gilbert - Terrifying Guitar Trip
Frank Gambale - Monster Licks & Speed Picking

I found Petrucci's DVD very helpfull for warmup and general practice material.

I found Gambales DVD excellent for my Sweep Picking which was admitedly rubbish before I started really working on it. He covers the basics but still gives you some good exercies for when you have the technique mastered..

Paul Gilbert's DVD is NOT for beginners however, theres some great licks to learn but you really need to know what your doing to get your head around alot of them...that and its REALLY hard not to laugh at his frilly Ibanez...:D

esquier

Ultimate Beginner: Blues Guitar Step One And Step Two.

Good for novices.

Duff_Man

i have a guns and roses one by somethin wolf....i cant find the thing so i canny rememer his name...its kinda helpful but its not really explained properly imo

Rustar

Wolf Marshall? He rules. I met him at a seminar for guitar styles at the music shop I was working in at the time. That boy can play in any style, very talented! A great teacher, too, he has stuff out there for every level.

cianc1

any for sale?

zorrow

Well, I have some guitar DVD/VHS. Here you go:

1- Brian May - Stars Licks: Pretty interesting if you want to learn some of his licks, but the most of the solos are incomplete.

2- Brad Gillis - Stars Licks: With this one I learned a couple of useful patterns. Later on I modified them to my own tastes, but this video demonstrated to me that you don't have to be a virtuoso to play killer solos -- just a good-enough technique, some attitude and an open brain would do it for anyone.

3- George Lynch - REH Video: A lot of material on this video. Some of the wide stretches are pretty hard to me, but there are quite a few of other great licks here. If you want to improve your arsenal and still moving away from the neoclassic stuff, I think this video could be very good -- and yes, you don't have to be a virtuoso, but it does help, man!

4- Joe Stump - Shred Metal Chop Builder: I'm doing some of his stuff in order to improve my picking technique. I don't dig neoclassic too much, but this video is pretty decent. He shows you how to use the metronome and does some interesting stuff for warming up. The scale patterns he uses are rather silly, but that's a great thing if all you want to do is a good workout.

So, that's all I have for now. I think my next purchase will be some stuff from Marty Friedman and/or Paul Gilbert.

Karl Hungus

Well, it seems I've picked up a few more DVDs since I started this thread, so I think I might let you guys know about them.

I think first of all, it's Marty Friedman's 99 Lead Guitar Phrases that I got at Christmas. This is an interesting one, it's basically Marty showing you 99 different licks, and that's it. It's odd, but the whole idea is, you just kinda learn a lick and get ideas from it. I've not really payed much attention to this DVD, as I was still fairly busy learning off a lot of technique.

While I was in Japan I picked up:

Billy Sheehan - Basic Bass. This one is very beginner orientated, and I'm kind of sorry I didn't pick up Advanced Bass aswell while I was there, because this is a very comprehensive DVD. Billy covers just about everything you could want to know about and then some, from picking out your first bass, to just about all the basic techniques you'd need for playing. Some of it you could probably scoff at, but it really does cover everything, and some of the fingerpicking ideas I put into practice instantly. I was hoping to get a better foundation in my bass playing, as I'm not really very good at it, and I certainly got that.

Marty Friedman - The Essential. This is as much an instructional video, as it is an interview, so there's a lot of looking at Marty's earlier work, and him commenting on it, explaining his influences and all that. It's excellent if you want to pick his brain, but even if you're not interested in him, it's extremely hard not to learn something. He shows you a lot of stuff from his Dragon's Kiss album, which is no bad thing at all, it's easily some of his best work. I'd say this DVD is probably Marty's best aswell, so a big thumbs up on this one.

Paul Gilbert - Guitars From Mars Volume 1 (Classical) This is an interesting one which covers a load of classical pieces on the electric guitar. Simple enough idea, and not only do you get a good workout for your technique, you also end up with a load of stuff that you can total show-off with. What's not to love? Well, I suppose if you don't like wankery stuff, you'd hate this with a passion, but I loved it.

Paul Gilbert - Guitars From Mars Volume 2 (Rock) Where Volume 1 was all about the technique, Volume 2 is all about the feel. It's basically two sides of the one coin. Paul shows you a lot of interesting ways to phrase, plenty of licks, and the ideas behind a lot of it. This was quite excellent, because I find myself just messing around and improvising a lot on the guitar with things I've picked up from this DVD, it gave me a lot of ideas. Definetly recommended.


Now, I find my little collection of instructional DVDs are split right down the middle, and on one side we have ones that are pure technique like Petrucci, while on the other side it's all about the feel, like Friedman. I think I've got a great balance between the two aswell, so it's not all mindless technique. I don't want to be a robot, obviously.

I will say this though, John Petrucci's Rock Discipline is probably the best, and most practical of all the DVDs I've seen. It's absolutely essential in my opinion. There is not a day that goes by that I don't use some of the warm-up exersizes I learned from it, and they do their job phenominally. The warm-up for picking is honestly invaluable to me. So guys, check this one out!