Customer Reviews

Beginning Rock Guitar the fun approach!

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Since buying my first guitar a couple of months ago, I've bought about 20 DVD lessons. As the title suggests, this DVD truly is a FUN approach.

The lessons themself are nothing special, very serious and straightforward, but the results are nothing short of amazing. In the DVD you learn to play about 20 COOL guitar riffs.

The first time you crank out the intro to the Rolling Stone's "Satisfaction" in front of your friends and family, they will look around to see if you're actually playing it yourself. It's a great feeling, and a great confidence builder for beginners like me.

I think all the reviews speak for themselves, so I'm just adding more praise on top of the other people's praise for this DVD.

I've never even held an electric guitar before but life's too short to not do what you always wanted to do and in my case it's play rock guitar so I decided to go for it. I bought a used standard black Fender Strat and then this DVD. I was amazed at how quickly I was playing actual, identifiable songs from some of my favorite rock groups. It was instant gratification.

I also liked how Paul Lidel was so clear and simple in his instructions. He has a very calm and patient demeanor about him. He also is obviously an awesome guitar player, if I could even get half as good as him I'd die happy. I wish he were my guitar teacher for private lessons!

If you've never played electric rock guitar before and can't afford private lessons, this is the best tool for you. Not only is it more encouraging to play actual cool songs instead of practice chords (not that that's not important) it's more fun too!

This is a basic video that gets a bit better as it goes along.
Everything is shown or discussed for a minute or two at most.

To start off, Paul tells you to tune your guitar to his - while he has heavy distortion effects on!

He then he starts "teaching"...

- the blues riff used in "bad to the bone"
- "smoke on the water" riff, not bad
- how to hold a pick like him
- a LZ riff
- what the names of the strings are
- "satisfaction" riff
- what the knobs on HIS amp do and how to get the sound that "you" want - on his amp
Distortion is still maxed so the difference is minor.
- A bad version of an Aerosmith riff ("walk this way"?) using fingers 1 and 2 and some "palm muting"
- how to read tablature (tab)
- a 2-note "rage against the machine" riff
- a way to memorize the notes on the top (E) string that is useless since all western music names notes with our alphabet from A to G
- how to memorize the frets so you can read tab - Hint: the dot markers on pretty much any guitar's fret board are at 3, 5, 7, 9 and 12 // The "double dot" one is at the 12th fret
- A VH riff using 5 Power Chords and a 2-finger movable chord shape
- What the knobs and switches on HIS electric guitar do, what pickups are...
- "lightning crashes" riff & notes on the A-string
- EC's "cocaine" riff. This is probably my favorite thing he did.
- the "ironman" riff, not bad
- "Drop D" tuning
- "alice in chains" riff & a "nirvana" riff (meh)
- How to use an electronic tuner (...)
- "enter sandman" riff & the "day tripper" riff (not bad)
- How to tune your guitar (to itself) without a tuner
- How to stretch the strings to help keep the guitar in tune (of course you should do this when you put new strings on...)
- "crazy train" riff & a SRV riff
- "Wild thing" using A, D and E chords.
- Tips for practicing chords and how to read a chord diagram
- "Knocking on Heaven's Door" - G, D, Am, & C [He finally turns the distortion off for this song]
- "Sweet Home Alabama" riff with "Hammer-ons" & "pull-offs"
- Practice tips: practice slowly and in 5 or 10 minute intervals several times a day instead of hours at a time

I'm new to the guitar. Just picked one up for fun and to learn something new. I tried a couple of other videos that just didn't work very well. I finally came across this one by chance.

Within half an hour, I was suddenly cranking out a few popular chords. Paul Lidel speaks slowly, describes everything in detail, plays songs both fast (so you can hear and feel the tune) and then slowly so you can follow along and see his movements. I love that! He also takes the time to explain the little things that many over dvd's pass over.

The chords from song's he chooses are popular rock songs, not mary had a little lamb or other childrens songs.

My only gripe is that the dvd is "short" and doesn't really teach songs, only chords. I would love to have a dvd from him teaching entire songs, including hand holding me through the hard parts. I think this guy is a talented enough teacher (and obviously talented at guitar) to do it.

If you're new to guitar and like rock, I would highly recommend giving this a go.

At 45, and not being musically inclined, but always having wanted to learn to play guitar, I bought my first guitar & amp. After trying to play with my music store's DVD for two weeks I was about to give up. Then, I saw Paul's Beginning Rock Guitar DVD and thought I'd give it one more chance. What a life saver! Paul must be one of the best guitar teachers out there. This DVD totally rekindeled my interest, has me playing again on a regular basis and has me making plans to buy a better guitar. Now I know I can do this. Thanks Paul, you're awesome! Rock on!