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G**K
Apply the scales and chords
This book was helpful in using scales and chords. As a beginner, it helped me understand how they came together to play the songs. I would recommend this book.
D**E
One of the best for a blues novice
I am an advanced beginner - low end intermediate player. I have read several books listed as beginner guides. While this book is thin on history of the blues, it is one of the best at taking you through defined intervals of study that result in a feeling of accomplishment. My family was actually asking if that was me or an audio track (a first...).If you are looking for a comprehensive course in blues study, this may not be the best choice. If however, you are looking for an accessible, blues beginner friendly book that will give you the essential tools to go deeper, this is the one you want.Bravo to the author for making this topic accessible to a newcomer.
6**G
Not for beginners
Very informational. However, as a beginner in guitar, this is difficult to understand, unless you have a background in music theory. I will store this book, and use it when I am able.
J**N
This book is working great for me!
I’m not often moved to write reviews, but I’m really impressed with this book. I play other instruments but I’m new to guitar, and after 3 days with this book I feel like I’ve been playing for a month or two. So far, so good! I Bought a few other beginning guitar books as well, but this is the one that has really got me hooked and feeling like I can already start making music on this instrument. I may look into more of his books once I’m through this one. Recommended!
G**S
The add disturb while you are trying to listening to the track I don’t like that
The book is great but this add shouldn’t be used is very disturbing and so I’m giving it three stars. This book is a great book but if possible please removed the add is very distracting.
T**T
I like being able to hear the audio before trying to play it.
I wouldn’t recommend it for a beginner, it’s a good book for someone with a little experience.For me 30 days is more likely than 14.
B**K
Beginners
It’s for very beginners . I needed something more advanced
O**L
Not for beginners
I've had this book for a few years but never got around to it until recently. The title is misleading because, unless you are gifted you will not be s proficient blues player in 14 days if you spend 90 minutes on each day's lessons (15 minutes per part of the day's lesson). Of course you could spend as much time as you like on each lesson but, even then, most people will not become a well-rounded player. Some issues with the book and tracks are that the author doesn't explain many important things at all. Also, he often casually mentions things involving music theory that most beginners and many advanced players may not know. He does this with no explanation at all, apparently assuming everyone understands theory well. There are parts where he also assumes you know how to read standard musical notation.I've played guitar on and off since the mid 60s and I still don't thoroughly understand theory. I know only the very basics of music theory but it gives me a headache and, frankly, I've never found it to be helpful for me.Next, the lead samples are uninspiring and incomplete. He almost never even goes to the 5 chord even though most blues is based on a I IV V progression. By leaving that out, the author pretty much leaves out the very basis of the blues, which seems really odd, to put it mildly. It would have been much better, in my opinion, if the lead parts were simple but satisfying classic blues riffs and they included the full blues progression. On top of that, most of the lead parts pretty much sound the same and not in a good way.Also, he should have a key for the various notations for techniques (hammer-ons, pull-offs, bends, slides and tremelo). New guitarist will easily figure it out but a key would be helpful since TAB isn't standardized and I've seen at least several different forms of it.There are errors in the book. There aren't that many but they indicate a lack of proof reading. An example: On page 23 for the turn-around, for example, the ending chord has to be a mistake. It sounds very sick. The author says it's a "paired down open E7 voicing" but it's really a E7add4 (I had to look it up) but it's surely an error because it really sounds sick. I have no idea why he just didn't end in a regular E7. Another example of errors is on page 36, day 11, Rhythm & Harmony. The 6th and 5th string notes should be on the 5th and 4th strings, respectively, and the thumb should not be used to fret the low E string as shown in error. They're just played open. That's a glaring and obvious mistake. After all, fretting the 6th string on fret 5 is the same as playing the open 5th string and no use of the thumb is needed. For anyone like me who has very large thick hands with short thumbs using the thumb to fret the 6th string is virtually impossible anyway so it was a relief to me when I realized the author's mistake because I do like the riff.Another thing that may be an issue for some is the size of the fret numbers in the TAB. I'm fortunate to have far better than 20/20 vision but, like many if not most older people, I have to wear reading glasses for close up things. For reading I wear just about the weakest reading glasses available. But for this book, I have to wear stronger reading glasses and, even then, I have to lean in so my face is very close to the pages to read the tiny numbers. Even then, I sometimes have to use a magnifying glass to read the numbers. Either way, that makes it virtually impossible to read the TAB while holding and playing my guitar and that makes the lessons virtually impossible to follow in a fluid and uninterrupted manner. But I plodded through the lessons anyway - as best I could - until the 13th day lesson when I finally realized that I had just been wasting my time. I didn't learn anything new or inspiring at all in the entire book. I'm not going to even try to do the final day's sum up of the course. It would be far to frustrating to attempt. And it wouldn't be worth it anyway because the book contained none of the classic blues that I love so much. For me, at least, I will use some books that I have but I'll mostly learn from some very good teachers on YouTube. Maybe it's just me but I learn much better by simply seeing what to play. Just show me where to put my fingers and I'll take it from there!Looking in my collection of guitar books that I haven't got around to using yet, I see I have this author's book on pentatonic scales where, again, he claims that you'll be proficient in 14 days. I'll give that to my grandson who is taking up guitar. He's 29 years old and played the saxophone for years so he probably understands music theory and he surely knows how to read standard musical notation so he will understand the author's often long detailed explanations for lessons that only someone who knows how to read music and knows theory will understand.To summarize, in my opinion, the author misleads by suggesting that you can learn the subjects in his books in 14 days by spending 15 minutes on each of 6 sections in each day's lesson. There may be people who can do this but they are probably also intermediated or advanced guitarists and know music theory and standard musical notation. And, if that's the case, that person probably doesn't need these 14-day books anyway. And anyone who actually gets through this book with the ability to play all the lessons as they sound in the audio samples will probably not learn anything new or anything that sounds like what most people thing of as the blues.For all these reasons I can't recommend this book, especially for beginners. I got the feeling that the author simply slapped together the book quickly to make a buck selling it. There are far better books available and, in fact, YouTube offers great instructional videos for free. In the amount of time I wasted on this book I could have mastered many great songs simply by watching YouTube videos. There are so many great ways to learn guitar these days that we never could have even dreamed of back in my younger days. Book lessons have a lot of competition and, if they want to compete, they better be of very high quality. This book is not that, in my opinion.
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