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Peter Green is awesome.  I look forward to hearing your stuff, Ian.  I know you're a great player.

Instructor

Ian have you heard the Allman Brothers version with those really cool changes like the D augmented to open the song?  Thats a very hard song to solo in, using a signle key.  Sure sounds like you are having fun, dug the chickin pickin ideas when you started out your leads.  It's clear you're home in your own element!

Instructor

Hey Ian,

Great playing as always, I really like the smooth legato endings, reminds me of Gary Moore.  My only comment would be to bring less speed in it, and really intersperse it with passages that have a theme and then build upon it. 

Think of the solo as having a starting point, and a middle high point and then a wind down.  I understand it is improvisation.  The thing I'd like is fewer lick type ideas and more, listening ideas.

As a player many times I have things that I know I can go to, because they work, but I'm not really thinking much past that, as far as what do they SAY...am I making sense here?

Are you familiar with call and response playing?  It's also known as question and answer playing.  It's where one phrase is played, and it becomes the question.  the very next thing that you play, is played as if it's answering that question.

I'd like to hear you play that track again, with a few challenges.  It may feel like playing with your arms tied behind your back:

1.  Play with no more than 6 notes to a single phrase.  7 is too many.  3 or 4 is ideal.

2.  Say as much as you can with those notes and make it in a call/response format.  Use few notes to ask a question and the next phrast to answer it.

3.  Avoid any "licks" that you know.  We all have these cliche go to's...try not to use any of them. 

4.  Play as fast/slow as you like, as long as you play no more than 6 notes in a phrase.

What do you think buddy?  You up to it?

If so, I look forward to your playing, and any insights that you get from it!

Instructor

Chain,

I'm a teacher too, I know you from UG and visited your site and wrote you complimenting your approach as a teacher and your strength of theory knowledge.  I'm Sean0913 on there. 

Hey Chain - good to see you here man!  Chain knows his stuff!  Chain's a good guy.  Listen to him, you'll do well.

(This is Sean from UG BTW)

Instructor

Strange is this thread yes?

Welcome Apache!

Well to update my review, Matias has managed to work in a slow speed version (60%) and a full speed version examples!  He said he'd need a few weeks, but it looks to me like he went out there and grabbed the bull by the horns on this!

Anyways, as of yesterday, I tested the latest version of the product out, and sent him my thoughts.  The bottom line here, is that for 5.00 you are getting something that far exceeds this price in value.

I would also say that it has a lot more claim as a teaching tool.  10 backing tracks, a PDF of 299 licks, played at 2 speeds, and most of these licks are very much in the melodic realm, and are downright tasty.

In a sense you have everything that you need, for self-study to get some great melodic playing under your belt because of this latest change.  Let me tell you a few ways that I can see already how to use it.

1.  Exploring intervals and sequences.  The licks and jamming tracks coincide.  Want to play in Lydian, or experiment?  My suggestion is open the pdf to the Lydian chapter, get the backing track loaded, and start interpreting the tab against the backing track.  Use your own melodic rhythm.  Explore the pitch collections of the lick and vary it up while listening to the track, and especially the intervals of the lick.  Playing this way in context can give you an idea of the authors thinking, but because Lydian tracks can take on different forms, its useful just to explore the overall intervallic ideas against the track.

2.  I have a program we use at the Academy called Guitar Speed Trainer, and we have an exclusive development partnership with it's creator.  What I like to do is take a lick and input it into the GST as a custom exercise, and set my metronome to gradually increase, and voila, custom chops building exercise that I can chart and maintain a record of.  Do 5 licks a day for a week, and in a month you'll have gained some serious chop building, on 20 or so hot licks!

3.  If the speeds of some of these licks, are still too great for some of these licks you can copy the tabs into Guitar Pro, or its alternative, Tux Guitar, and set the metronome marking at 25%-50% of the speed and you can work on licks that way.

Overall I think we have a solid value here in which the quality and now, teaching/learning value is much higher, and for the money, there's no down side to this any more.  The only thing about it, is that most people will never fully make use of the licks, there are so many you could go for years and still not finish learning them.  Most likely it will be an "ideas bank" where, let's say you're in a playing rut, and you need an outside way of playing, to break it, this is a great way to inspire some creative ways of playing and improvising.  I say this especially because the way he tends to write licks tends to fall on the melodic side rather than the step-wise shredder thing way where its one note after another.

Most of the licks are 4 bar ones, so there are plenty of sub lick ideas you can grab from just one lick example.

Anyways, as far as I know his latest version is now ready.  I think it would be a class act if he would extend the courtesy of a free pdf upgrade, to those who may have already purchased the first version.  I will mention this to him.

Matias is a man of few words, but its clear that he cares about the quality of his work.

Best,

Instructor

Zakk Wylde

I dont agree with the RR comment though, not remotely, for his time when he came out, few could do what he did, and his thing was absolutely original, and today because of what he did there are so many guitarists doing runs straight out of his playbook everytime they run a legato line.

A hard act if not impossible to follow...

...ask Bernie Torme and Brad Gillis...

Instructor

I'm not a beer guy, but I'd break bread with anyone.  I think I'd love to hang and chat with Guthrie Govan, or Danny Gill, who I respect very much as a teacher. 

I got to meet another teaching hero legend of mine, Wolf Marshall, at the NAMM show a couple of years ago.  Unfortunately, he had just had a death in his family and he was dealing with that, so I was very respectful of his circumstances and send my condolences.

I'd also love to hang and chat with Tommy Emmanuel.

To be honest, I'd be happy just being at the table and listening while these guys talked to others.  I'm sure I'd pick up a lot from that.

Instructor

This is a great question.  As you might have seen ESP/LTD came out with Tele type models this year.  I got the Black one with the relic'd Maple neck.

Honestly, Relic'd isnt for me.  Its like those jeans that you can buy with holes already in them.  I think they are trying to replicate the broken in feel of an instrument...but I'm not sure that Im with it.  I think its more a fad and marketing ideas than anything else, and will be short lived.  Sort of like the Ukelele fad that blew throgh last year.

Best,

Instructor

Im not familiar with the sanpera pedal.  I generally dont follow Peavey, unless I happen to run into something.  For example there was a friend of mine that had something called a TransTube 212 by Peavey that sat embarrassingly ignored for months while people bought the Line6's all around it.  I finally had to break the news that no one wanted his amp.   Personally after hearing the sounds, I felt like it should be put out of its misery. 

So aside from the 5150, I'd never been overly impressed with the amp lineups of Peavey, they were unremarkable and basic, and somewhat functional, sort of like Crate.

Ive never tried or heard the Vyper so I couldnt comment upon it.    All the student amps I use at the Academy are Spider 15's. 

Instructor