Blues Lead Guitar Technique: With CD

Rating:
Summary: My favorite book/value purchase so far.
Review: As someone who is trying to learn guitar at the age of 37, I want to just have some fun. This book does that, as it has you building a 12 bar blues solo for each pattern. HINT: Just practice going up and down each pattern very well before tackling each set of licks. Highly recommend! Oh yeah the included CD to hear everything is priceless.

Rating:
Summary: Buy it!
Review: Excellent combination of written instruction and examples backed by quality tracks.

Rating:
Summary: Superb starting point
Review: If you have some knowledge of the guitar, you can play the chords, you're learning your scales, but you don't know where to get started with playing lead--this book is probably the best place to start I know of. You start out learning some very simple little licks, and then after you've learned a few, you find them strung together into a 12-bar blues--and suddenly, miraculously, for maybe 20 seconds, you find that you can actually play lead guitar! How cool is that? (All examples are played fast, then slow, like REALLY slow.)

As the book progresses, the leads get more complex, and therefore more difficult to learn. But there is nothing here that is of the advanced caliber. I don't mean that as a criticism--this stuff SHOULD be aimed at the beginner to intermediate. But the stuff isn't all wimpy, straight pentatonic stuff either. It isn't boring. You will learn some really cool-sounding music from the book, played all over the fretboard. And there is PLENTY to learn.

At the same time, the book won't take you very far beyond the introductory lead playing stage. So don't expect this book to make you the next BB King. And the coverage of theory is minimal at best, as it is in all such books that promise to teach you everything there is to know about lead guitar.

About the biggest complaint I can come up with is that I found the guy's English (or Australian?) accent (a rural accent, I believe?) vaguely annoying after a while. But if that's the most you can complain about, you know you've gotten a good value. In fact, this book would be worth at least twice what they're charging for it.

As a final note, raw beginners could probably make use of this book, but it would be very slow going. Advanced players would be bored by it. It is targeted directly at players who have taken the time to learn pentatonic scales fairly well, understand basic chord progressions, but don't have a clue how to make interesting solos.

Rating:
Summary: Deep Intermediate Blues (and Rock) Instruction
Review: Peter Gelling continues on from "Blues Lead Guitar Method". He gives you the basic blues scales with the blue notes added. He teaches a song with each scale (which helps to commit the scale to memory). He also covers arpeggios, and various rhythms. The book introduces a few new techniques along with some really good signiture licks from blues masters. The book takes a little work, but it is fun an will improve your style.

Rating:
Summary: Deep Intermediate Blues (and Rock) Instruction
Review: Peter Gelling continues on from "Blues Lead Guitar Method". He gives you the basic blues scales with the blue notes added. He teaches a song with each scale (which helps to commit the scale to memory). He also covers arpeggios, and various rhythms. The book introduces a few new techniques along with some really good signiture licks from blues masters. The book takes a little work, but it is fun an will improve your style.

Rating:
Summary: Good Solid book that helps you improve your chops
Review: Peter's books are all very good. What I like about Peter's approach is that he is a guitarist's guitarist without being a purist about it. He'll show you how to rest your pinky of your right hand on the body of the guitar for greater stability, mention on how your right hand thumb is sometimes better wrapped around the neck instead of the 'middle of the neck at all times classical approach'. By working through his lessons, my flexibility really improved. Even though I've been playing for almost 30 years, Peter had some nice new tricks for me. Highly recommended.