Thursday, January 18, 2007

Guitar Videos - Do they really work?

If anyone ever doubted whether you can learn to play guitar using guitar videos....think again. This was sent to me today from Dave. Dave has a very familiar story. Learned a bit. Raised a family. Came back to it and started looking for ways to improve his guitar playing. Here's what he wrote.

Mike,

I took lessons when I was 15-16 yrs old. Stopped playing because I was frustrated with the theory aspect of the lessons and disgusted that I couldn't play any songs.

My friends would say play me something and all I could play were some scales and a few chords. Fast forward 29 years. I'm now 44 yrs old and I havepicked up the guitar on and off since my teenage yrs and would struggle to try and learn a song here and there.

This past year when my second son went off to college I figured it was time for me to try and keep myself occupied by picking up the guitar again. In December I stumbled on to your website and started working on your free download lessons and songs. When you offered the "strummers paradise" I was anxious to try and move my playing forward. I just downloaded the first few songs today and I am amazed that I can actually play a song pretty easily after practicing from your lessons and working on it a little every night.

I first tried "Folsom Prison Blues" because my wife and I just watched "Walk the Line" recently. I was starting to play the song after watching the video and my wife came in from the other room . . . and was amazed at the fact that I was actually playing and singing a song. I told my wife that if this type of lesson was available when I was a treenager I never would have stopped playing.

Thank you Mike, you've rekindled in me something that I always
regretted not sticking with. I guess you're never too old.
Thanks
D.J.

I must admit I was rather pleased with this latest set of videos and it looks like I might have pleased one or two other people as well.

You can still get them here at the launch price
If you are quick. I will not be repeating them at this price
ever

9 comments:

Mike Herberts said...

Cheers Val,
You give me hope in my despair.
I knew there would be a few problems with so many people trying to access the vids...plus some of them were not uploaded right. Nearly there now. Just want to get a sound button on each chord page to play along to.
Always good to hear from you.
Mike

Sean McGrath said...

Mike,
The videos are great. I'm learning a lot.

One thing I could sure do with some help on. The pieces that involve strumming patterns with chord changes that occur part way through the pattern.

Sean

Lucky-luc said...

Hi Mike

I am still struggling to download three songs, The other songs I could download without any problem and I love them. they are "simple" extremely useful and very instructive. Love the way you have set them up.
But I keep on having problems with three of them.
I already did post a question to you and I hope you will find the time to solve the problem or answer my question.
Thanks and hoping to hear from you soon.
Luc

Anonymous said...

Hi Mike,
Your work as a guitar teacher is amazing. I think that a lot of people knows and feel how fast they already can play guitar.
I hope you stay a long time on the Internet with your lessons and good quality music videos on DVD ;)

Greetings from a friend;
Rob Esmeijer from Holland
PS>>Other people can visit my site and go to the bottom from the page and they see a free advertising to your web site. http://members.chello.nl/~rerm/

Lucky-luc said...

Hi, Val

Thanks for the advice to refresh and download again. The situation is that downloading is not the problem, The whole file gets in, but when I try to play it on Media player it stops half way. typically just for three video's, not for the rest.!
Will see what Mike and his technical staff has to say to this.
Nice to see that fellow guitarist help (or at least try to help). Thanks for that
Luc Kampinga from the Netherlands

Rich said...

Hi all,
Mike - Great strumming vids, I managed to download them without any problems and like Val, I particularly like Norwegian Wood! I also like ‘Boulevard Of Broken Dreams’ as it’s sooo simple, but effective! BTW Mike, one for your next DVD (lol!), could be 'Dear Prudence' maybe? I've always liked that song :-)
I was wondering the other day, what kind of picks do you all use, or prefer? Large, small, soft hard etc? I think getting the right one for you is quite important... I prefer small 'Light' ones, even for lead picking as well as strumming! I also tried a thumb pick after seeing Mike use one on 'Don't Think Twice' and found it REALLY difficult at first, but it does seem to enhance the base notes more, and seems to be getting easier to use. I’ve also got a finger pick, but there’s NO way I could use it, it just keeps pulling the string up instead of plucking it – VERY weird, lol! Anyway, keep at it y'all! - Rich.

joeyslowfingers said...

hey mike
i think you are one heck of a teacher and a great guitarist and ive enoyed what ive purchased so far from you
but we need more single vids, i didnt buy ur last package because i didnt recognize or didnt like all of them
mabey you could break em down and offer them seperately or something
but dude youve been a bit of a gohst here lately a shadow or your other self lol
hope to here more from ya in the future mike aka phantom
later joe

Rich said...

Val,
Yeah, has been a while since I last posted, 'cos I'm studying for some IT exams at the mo for work, so I haven't really been practicing that much (sorry Mike :-)) Be assured that I am still lurking though…

Hmmm, I'll have to give the picks another chance and, like you say, try turning the finger pick upside-down sort of - Thinking about it, it makes sense, but one naturally assumes it goes on like a fake finger nail… Not that I ever wear fake fingernails you understand – lol! Actually I feel a bit like Freddy Krueger when I’ve got them on 

Anyways – Back to the studying I suppose. Keep up the practicing folks!
All the best – Rich.

P.S. I was browsing ‘YouTube’ the other day and saw this guitarist on there :-

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=cynthiapage

Thought she was very good myself, especially ‘Piano Man’ and ‘I’m With You’ – Oh and Val, she’s also from Canada… Do you know her? 

hans free said...

Where is Val on the forum?