Customer Reviews

The Robben Ford Clinic: The Art of Blues Solos

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

 

 

This DVD was a real treat. The opportunity to watch one of my favorite guitarists in a casual setting and listen to him talk about what developed his style and how he does what he does, coupled with him teaching several of his pieces, is an awesome combination of education and just plain musical enjoyment. the 50+ page PDF with the music and various technical explanations of scales and techniques is a truly appreciated bonus. I went out and bought the blues rhythm DVD based on this and will tell you what I think once I listen to it.

I recently purchased both of the new Robben Ford instruction videos (Art of Blues Rhythm Playing and Art of Blues Soloing). These videos were produced by Don Mock. If you know anything about guitar instruction books or tapes, you should be intimately familiar with Mr. Mock. He has been in the business of educating guitar players for 30+ years. This video has extremely high production quality both in terms of visual clarity and audio quality. I'm delighted about this because so many instruction videos look and sound like they were created with amateur equipment.

Robben is presenting fundamentals of blues based soloing. He covers simple pentatonic based concepts and expands into more advanced territory, venturing into the jazz realm - but without getting too technical too quickly. It does help to have somewhat of a decent background in music theory. But it's not necessary because he (Robben) does such a good job at explaining the concepts in detail. He goes into some diminished concepts - and I learned a couple of new things (and I've been playing guitar for 26 years).

Robben takes each concept and provides live examples of how he incorporates these ideas. He's frequently accompanied by a bass player and a second guitarist (who provide a rhythmic and harmonic back drop for Robben to do his thing). Another FANTASTIC thing he does - which I really loved is how he demonstrates using different pickups, tone and volume settings on the guitar itself to shape the tone. He compared the front pick up to a tenor sax tone and the back pick up to a trumpet tone - obviously in reference to the multiple jazz influences he has. I've never thought about it that way before, but in retrospect, it makes sense.

Robben explained his guitar equipment (picks, strings, amps, effects, and guitars). The guitar he's playing in the video (btw) is a 1957 Les Paul Goldtop which he got from his friend Larry Carlton. It sounded AMAZING in the video. Another gem he presented was his use of a little pedal called a "Zendrive". It provides users with a tone similar to what he gets with his Dumble amplifiers (which are impossibly expensive and impossible to find). It's nice that he can help us real people approximate his tone with real world gear.

I believe the running time on this video exceeded 1.5 hours. So you're definitely getting not only quality content, but ample quantity to keep you busy for a long time. As I said, I've been playing guitar for 26 years (since 1984) and have collected a LOT of videos. I think these new DVD's are excellent and highly recommend them.

I've been a fan of Ford's since the early 1980's, and have most of his guitar albums and videos / DVDs.

What is dissapointing with this DVD is that he really does NOT teach anything new compared with his previous efforts, and what he does teach is merely on the surface. But I guess that is to accommodate the stooge's sitting in the audience fumbling with their guitars and staring wide mouthed at their idol. Quite amusing actually. If you've been playing guitar for more than a few years and have seen Ford's other instructional efforts (which are great), then you too will be sorely disappointed.

So all in all, this is just a seminar (same stooges from the Rhythm DVD / seminar) that was captured by a film crew and very poorly edited, in the hope of providing more income to the likes of Ford and Don Mock (who is also an excellent guitar player, musician and educator).

I give it one star more than one star, simply for the fact that Ford is such a great player and human being.


Next time, let's see something new and substantial; something worth my time and money please!


:-)

He breaks down some of his songs and thats about it. It should be renamed; "How to play some of my songs and watch me babble about random things for an hour.

And now the infamous internet rant:

This guy is talented, but he should cut to the chase and actually have some content! (sidenote-his teeth bothered me, I'm a bit ocd about things like that) My advice, get your butt off the computer and find or start a blues jam night in your area! The only thing he's really right about is you have to feel the music and not think about what you are playing, but just try to connect to your instrument, which I didn't have to pay 30 bucks to be reminded of, learn a little theory a little bit at a time, learn your favorite songs, and improvise and jam with people. Once I'm famous I'm going to make better DVDs than this (or blu-ray or whatever the hell is out by then) that musicians can actually afford! I tried giving it ZERO stars, but the Amazon gods would not let me.