As a life long fan of hard rock and heavy metal I had always wanted to learn to play guitar but just never had the opportunity. For my 47th birthday I bought myself the gift of an electric guitar, amplifier and the Doug Marks Metal Method guitar instruction course and made the commitment to finally learn to play. The course consists of six DVDs that take you from an absolute beginner and gives you all the tools you need to become a proficient rock and metal guitarist. The course is challenging and requires considerable practice to master the lessons but I enjoyed the course so much that I looked forward to my practice sessions and progressing through the lessons gave me a great sense of accomplishment. Taking up the guitar is one of the best things I have ever done for myself and I will be a guitarist for the rest of my life thanks to Doug Marks and his excellent course. The course has been revised since I first ordered it so I even bought the new version and went through that course too. The support is also excellent. The Metal Method website has a forum where you can communicate with other students of the course and Doug Marks will answer any question that may come up as you are progressing through the course. I will soon be 50 years old and it will make 3 years since I first started the course and I would never have imagined that I would be at the level I am now. I took the time to write this review as my small way of thanking Doug Marks for what his course has done for me so if you have ever dreamed of being a great guitarist by all means order the course and get rockin'!

This course helped me a lot. I've always loved the blues, and
this course helped me understand how to actually play
"through the blues". It is oriented more towards intermediate
players who already understand blues progressions, although
beginners can learn those progressions using this course as
well. Intermediate players will be able to complete simple solos
over blues backing tracks very quickly, and they will sound
good. Griff offers amazing support to any questions you have,
and taking his course really brings you into a little community
of guitar students. This is worth its weight in gold. If you're
wondering why I took a half star off, it's because this is a
downloaded course rather than something you can hold in your
hand that arrives in the mail. Griff recently released another
version of "Playing Through the Blues", and it rectifies this
minor issue. I'll give it a separate review.

Griff decided to release another blues guitar course that took
everything from "Playing Through the Blues" and added to it.
This time the course is a dvd and manual format rather than a
downloaded course. The dvd is well done and production is
great, much better than in his previous course, which was
good as well. Essentially, this course is simply an updated,
better looking version of "Playing Through the Blues" with just
enough added content to keep you learning. If you want a
better view of Griff's previous course, this is for you. If you
didn't get the previous course, get this one instead. 5 out of 5
because you'll learn how to perform a solid, good sounding solo.
You'll gain confidence when you solo over the blues. This
course is not leaps and bounds better than "Playing Through
the Blues", it just looks better, has slightly more content to it,
and is in a different format. It easily makes up the half star I
took away from the previous course. Highly recommended for
blues players and wannabes like me...and not that it really
should matter, but from the time I ordered the course to the
time I sat down to open the box was just a few days..his
service is as good as his instruction!

I have spent a significant amount bying various courses / videos etc and find them useful in varying degrees.
The best value I have ever spent was subscribing to 'Guitar Alliance'.
There is a life-time membership which is about £40 - this gives access to Just Acoustic, Mojo (blues), Riff-o-matic, front Porch Strumming and Bass Alliance web-sites.
There is everything you could want on these sites - theory, lessons, tab, riffs, videos, jam-tracks and loads of songs.
All levels are covered.
You can print stuff easily, download and save tabs in various formats.
Once you are a member, moving from site to site is a dream it just goes without having to log in again.
It is the real deal - a one stop location and great value for money.

This is a downloaded mini course on how to memorize your guitar fretboard. It claims you can learn it quickly in a matter of an hour or so. It also includes some "free" bonuses. The course itself was of no help to me. You memorize a character who represents each note and there is a silly story that each character is involved in. You memorize the story and the relationship of the characters in the story. This is how you learn the fretboard. I thought it was harder to memorize the story than the notes. I thought the program was a waste of money. The free bonuses were better than the main product. You get a drum loop program, chord book, tab book and some other miscellaneous stuff that is pretty good, although I would still spend my money elsewhere.

This isn't really a "teaching" course as much as it is a jump start on playing your favorite songs (Iron Man, War Pigs, White Wedding, etc.)

Dan Warner (the instructor) will go through the steps of how to play your favorite heavy metal songs from the Intro, chorus, outro, etc.

I especially like these DVDs as they do break down the songs nicely and can give you some good pointers on playing the song, start to finish.

The biggest drawback is there is no printed TAB or website to download the TAB.

The best place to look for these DVDs is ordermusictoday.com.

There are lots of categories of music available from SongXpress and for $12 per DVD, they are worth a look.

These 3 books are the best guitar books out there. When you read these books (and there is a DVD as well), you'll be grounded in a guitaristic approach to music theory. This foundation is invaluable in understanding chord construction, scales, arpeggios, and lead patterns that are unique to the guitar. These books are well-written and they are jam-packed with information. It will take multiple reads (and lots of playing) to absorb all of the material within.

This is good software that will teach you scales. It is however, a bit of an awkward method they use. I found that half way through the course--on the progress tracker (which is an excellent feature) my friends were commenting on how much more confident I was with improvising. This does work, and does an excellent job of explaining scales and modes, but it does have some problems. I hate the sound of cheap midi music, and the methods of learning the scales are painfully slow. It relies more on memorization than on learning, which makes it even slower. I would recommend this software to people just starting out with the guitar because some of the drills will strengthen your fingers, and some are even fun. I would also recommend this software because it is simple to use and provides an excellent resource for scales, root notes, and modes. Midi still sucks though...

I had played for 10 years before I decided I should probably learn about scales. I could play bits of various scales, but I had no idea what they were all about. I tried courses bought online, I bought software to help me, and then I read about the Nashville Pattern. It's all true...this thin little book requires about a half an hour to read through, and then you can play (slowly and unsurely at first ) the major scale or the minor scale anywhere on the neck. You will not forget this pattern...its really simple to learn once you make sense of the pattern diagram, and then off you go. I had spent nearly 3 years trying to learn all the major scale positions, minor scale positions etc, but I couldn't memorize everything I needed to, and there just didn't seem to be any kind of simple logic to it all...until I bought this book. I applied the method used in this book to the blues scale, and a half an hour later, I was playing the entire scale all along the fretboard. The Nashville Pattern doesn't concern itself with much theory, it's more of a "play this and this and this in this order, and you'll be fine" kind of thing. The beauty of the Nashville Pattern is that once you've applied it and learned, yes learned, the scales, you want to go back and figure out the theory, and the best part about that is that you want to go back and learn it--so it sticks! Can't say enough about the Nashville Pattern! If you're having trouble with scales because you'd rather memorize something more exciting, buy this book, you'll be figuring out the scales in no time, and then its just about practicing and jamming along because you will be able to improvise using the entire fretboard. I wish I knew about this three years ago--it would have saved me lot of money and time.

I took a half mark off because it uses midi sounds. This software is made by the same people who put out Guitar Scales Method and the fretboard Trainer. This is probably the best of the three. The Speed Trainer is a series of exercises designed to dramatically increase speed and stamina in your fingers and hands. It works on both hands too, it's not just for your fretting hands. It really develops the coordination between the hands as well, which is critical to playing fast. The progress tracker is great because it taylors the drills to you. You carry out the exercises and then select a difficulty rating as the exercise speeds up. The software keeps track of how you perform on each exercise. As the exercises get easier, you select a new difficulty rating, and then the next time you do that same exercise, it will be faster and more difficult. I don't know that I'm explaining it that well, it just really works, and it's simple to use! Fast results with this!