Learn and Master Drums

I have recently posted a Squidoo Lens review of the Learn and Master Drum Lessons DVD set by Dan Sherrill.

The Learn and Master Drums course is designed to guide you from the very basics of setting up the drum set to expert playing techniques including improvising over popular songs in several styles of music. It is a professionally produces All-Video DVD Lesson Program conducted by one of the top drummer / instructors in the country. Read my detailed review before even considering buying. Learn and Master Drums

How To Practice Guitar Like A Pro

Guitar Practice is one of the most under-taught aspects of learning to play. Most of a student's real progress takes place when they are home alone when no one is there to coach the practice sessions. Yet, few instructors bother to adequately teach this critical activity. From my experience, too many teachers just demand that you practice without explaining why or how.

So many students become understandably frustrated when their progress is slow and practice times are just not fun! Many quit practically before they get started. They never have the satisfying pleasure that comes from getting past the initial awkward phase.

For 12 essential guitar practice tips click here: How To Practce Like A Pro

Learn & Master Guitar Review Update

The Learn And Master Guitar Lesson Video Review has been posted to a new Squidoo Lens. If you would like to visit please follow this link: Learn And Master Guitar

Learn To Play Guitar Software or All-Video DVD Lessons: Which is Better?

What is your first impression of Learn-To-Play-Guitar Software? Do you assume that it must be an advanced and therefore highly effective way to deliver music lessons because it involves a computer? You certainly are not alone if that is what you think. Let’s explore exactly what current popular guitar lesson software can and cannot do for a budding guitarist. Then let’s compare it to the all video DVD lesson fo...

Learn To Play Guitar Software Full Article.

The Best Guitar Lesson DVDs

I have started a new Lens on Squidoo that is focused on the topic of the best guitar lesson dvds. It contains a category listing of reviews and publisher links. The lesson reviews include: beginner, intermediate, blues, bass, lead, electric, acoustic, rock, heavy metal and jazz. Please consider giving me feedback on how this Blog and the new Squidoo Lens can be improved. Thank You!

The link to this new Squidoo Lens is:
The Best Guitar Lesson DVDs

Learn And Master Drums Review

The Goal Of The Course:

The Learn And Master Drums course is designed to guide you from the very basics of setting up the drum set to expert playing techniques including improvising over popular songs in several styles of music.

Who Will Benefit Most From This Drum Lesson Course?

This lesson dvd set is geared for anyone, from young adults and older, that has a dream to master all facets of the drums. This includes first time beginners through intermediate drummers that wish to expand and polish their playing skills.

About The Instructor Dann Sherrill

He has performance and production credits with Steve Winwood, Michael English, Percy Sle...

For rest of my in-depth review just follow this link: Learn & Master Drums Review

Review: Speed Kills Advanced Guitar Picking Techniques by Michael Angelo Batio

Michael Angelo Batio, considered by many to be the fastest guitar player on the planet, created Speed Kills to be the ultimate guitar lesson on speed picking technique. This course concentrates on teaching speed techniques that challenge even the most advanced players. Even so, an intermediate guitarists can begin working with this and ...to continue this article please follow this link: Speed Kills Video Guitar Lessons by Michael Angelo Batio

Play What You Hear: A Jazz Guitar Lesson Review

The Purpose of the “Play What You Hear” CD jazz guitar lesson program is to teach the student to ah…well… to play what they hear.

Seriously, the author, Chris Standring, makes a great point that many guitarists learn to master the fretboard through visualizing shapes and patterns. The unfortunate result is that solos improvised in this manner can sound contrived. Chris goes on to say that he believes that many guitarists often have no idea that they do not ..... to continue this review click here: Play What You Hear.

Learn To Play Acoustic Guitar by First Avoiding Lethal Beginner Mistakes

The initial stage of learning to play acoustic guitar can be tedious and awkward. In fact in the first few days the beginner student may not be able to imagine ever being able to play. This loss of hope can lead to quitting the guitar sometimes before barely getting started.

The tragedy is that in many cases a successful breakthrough is often just a matter of a few more days of smart pracitice. The following 7 powerful tips are designed to assist the new student avoid some of the unnecessary initial hurdles that can derail learning to play acoustic guitar...

To continue just follow this link: Learn To Play Acoustic Guitar

For a detailed review of our highest rated beginner through intermediate guitar lesson program please follow this link: Learn & Master Guitar

Learn To Play Acoustic Guitar by Avoiding Lethal Beginner Mistakes

The initial stage of learning to play acoustic guitar can be tedious and awkward. In fact in the first few days the beginner student may not be able to imagine ever being able to play. This loss of hope can lead to quitting the guitar sometimes before barely getting started.



The tragedy is that in many cases a successful breakthrough is often just a matter of a few more days of smart pracitice. The following 7 powerful tips are designed to assist the new student avoid some of the unnecessary initial hurdles that can derail learning to play the acoustic guitar.


The 7 tips below are designed to help the new student avoid some of the unnecessary initial hurdles that can derail a great start....continue article here: Learn To Play Acoustic Guitar



For a detailed review of our highest rated beginner through intermediate video guitar lesson program follow this link: Learn & Master Guitar

CF Guitar Lesson: Get A Fun Start To Learning Guitar With 2 Chord Songs

Some beginner guitar students end up quitting lessons because the initial process of learning to play can be too slow and not very gratifying. In fact, even the best video guitar lesson programs risk losing the interest of young students if they offer too much information in preparation for getting to the fun stuff.

Before jumping into the complete instruction courses it sometimes makes sense to first learn just the bare minimum required to play a few easy chords that together form a simple but familiar song. These chords should be easy to move between like the C F chords for example.

The idea is to get a quick taste of the fun and satisfaction of actually learning a simple song or two that can be performed for sympathetic friends and family. If the plan works it will be inspire new student to hang in with the more tedious but essential lessons of a full instructional course.

Follow this link for the rest of this lesson and for a list of 2 chord songs... CF Guitar Lesson

Read a detailed review of Learn & Master Guitar - our top rated beginner through intermediate video guitar lesson program by following this link: Learn and Master Guitar Review

Guitar Barre Chord Lesson: Faster, Cleaner Changes

Have you ever tried to learn a song that uses a progression of barre chords that are spread out all over the neck of your guitar? The faster the tempo the more likely it is that you will over or under shoot the correct frets.

While conquering this problem is often a matter of diligent slow-speed practice sessions, there is a fantastic alternative trick that consolidates all of these chords into one small section of the neck called the box. For the rest of this article click here: Barre Chord Lesson

REVIEW: Bass Guitar Secrets by Alex Sampson

I happen to believe that learning to play bass guitar can improve your total understanding and feel for music. As a result, songwriters, rhythm guitar players and even lead guitarists can benefit from learning bass.

Also, bass players are often in short supply, so learning these skills can be a golden ticket into a great band.

Of course playing bass is great fun and makes anyone playing one automatically cool. (Come on, you know I’m right).

If any of the above appeals to you, then you might want to take a serious look at this review of Bass Guitar Secrets instructional program by Alex Sampson.

The Goal of Bass Guitar Secrets:
As written by Alex Sampson: The Goal of Bass Guitar Secrets is… follow this link for the rest of the Bass Guitar Secrets Review OR follow this link to go to the company site for more information, samples, a free newsletter or to purchase Bass Guitar Secrets.

Guitar Chord Formulas: Learn Simple Formulas To Build Any Chord

Have you ever needed to know how to play a particular chord on your guitar but didn’t have a chord chart handy? Solving this common problem can be as simple as learning the formulas for building the different chord types. Follow this link for some basic tips for getting started:

Guitar Chord Formulas

Guitar Chords: Learn Simple Formulas To Build Any Chord

Have you ever needed to know how to play a particular chord on your guitar but didn’t have a chord chart handy? Solving this common problem can be as simple as learning the formulas for building the different chord types. Follow this link for some basic tips for getting started:



Guitar Chord Formulas

Instantly Play 12 Guitar Chords By Learning Just One Movable Shape

Learning movable chord shapes is a fairly simple concept. Yet, they can dramatically increase the number of chords and therefore the number of songs at your disposal.

Like many guitar students, my beginner days were spent memorizing about 10 open chords. You know, the ones found at the first 4 frets at the far end of the guitar neck.

When I gradually learned to move smoothly from chord to chord a whole world of songs were suddenly at my fingertips. For the first time I felt like a real guitar player.

It had taken quite a while to memorize the open chords and I just couldn’t imagine how anyone could learn and remember all the chords that reside at the other 18 or so frets on the guitar neck. It just didn’t make much sense. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason for why certain notes were fingered on certain strings. Each and every chord just had to be memorized… or so I thought.... click here for the rest of the article on Movable Barre Chord Shapes

REVIEW: Jamorama Guitar Lessons Are Surprisingly Innovative At A Truly Low Cost

Ranked 8.5 out of 10

My top recommendations always lean towards guitar instruction programs that are all-video. They offer an easier method of communicating lots of subtle information. Having said that, I feel that although Jamorama is a downloadable written lesson program, it is by far the best in its class. The primary reason for this is because of the quality audio and video snippets added to enhance the learning experience.

The lessons are logical, thorough and perfect for the rank beginner all the way through advanced intermediate players. The course has some of the most innovative software programs and games for taking the mundane parts of learning the guitar and making them fun.

At only $39.95, Jamorama is perfect for someone that does not wish to spend $150- $200 for an all-video program. It is an excellent, low risk way to get started with learning to play guitar. For these reasons, I recommend, with out hesitation, the Jamorama guitar lesson program.

Click here for my complete written review of the Jamorama Guitar Lesson Program.

Click here for FREE Jamorama sample lessons.

Click here for a chapter by chapter listing of all of the Jamorama Guitar Lessons.

Review: Metal Method Video Guitar Lessons

Rated 10 out of 10

This course is designed for anyone interested in learning to play the electric guitar. It is especially appropriate for those interested in improvising lead solos. While the emphasis is on Hard Rock and Heavy Metal music, the fundamental techniques and theory are common and essential to Hard Rock, Classic Rock and Blues Rock as well.



I have reviewed so many guitar lesson programs that show some good potential but they always seem have one or two fatal flaws. It was a pleasant surprise to discover that the Metal Method Guitar Lesson DVDs where solid all the way through. It is one of the most thorough, polished and well thought out programs I have ever seen. It is obvious that Doug Marks has actually been listening to his students for over 23 years and using that feedback to continually refine each element of his lessons.


If you are serious about learning the electric guitar this DVD series is a must have. According to the Metal Method website they were picked by Guitar World Magazine for being essential guitar DVDs. I couldn’t agree more.

To discover some of the unique innovations that make Metal Method so unique click here:
http://www.compareguitarlessons.com/Review-Metal-Method.html

To directly visit the Metal Method site for additional information or to buy click here:

Metal Method Video Guitar Lesson Website:

Free Online Guitar Tuner Plus How To Tune Your Guitar

I have just added an Online Guitar Tuner for your convenience (compliments of Mike Giesen at WimpyPlayer.com). Follow this link:
http://www.CompareGuitarLessons.com/Online-Guitar-Tuner.com

You will also find a new series of articles about " How To Tune A Guitar". This is an often neglected part of learning to play guitar, even for experienced players, yet tuning is as important as learning chords, theory, picking, fretting and reading tabs.

The articles cover the following topics:

• How To Set Up Your Guitar For Tuning
• How To Tune Using Reference Tuning Methods, (How to tune using a piano and more...)
• How To Tune Using Relative Tuning Methods
• How To Tune a Guitar To Itself
• Tuning with Harmonics
• How Tune Using An Electronic Tuner
• The Types of Electronic Tuners and When To Use Them
• Guitar Tuning Tips
• Plus A Free Online Guitar Tuner Tool

Just follow this link to my new guitar tuning section: http://www.CompareGuitarLessons.com/How-To-Tune-A-Guitar.html

Please let me know what you think!

Happy Playing,

John Mackinnon

Chord Finder Tool: Find Fingerings for Hundreds of Guitar Chords - FREE

I have just installed an animated Guitar Chord Finder Tool FREE for anyone to use. Select a chord and watch as an animated dots are superimposed over a photo of a realistic guitar neck. It supports hundreds of chords and derivations. Its amazingly fast and lots of fun. Try it out.

Go To http://www.CompareGuitarLessons.com/Guitar-Chords.html

Be sure to let me know what you think.