This course is by Berklee professor Jon Finn that helps guitarists to develop stronger blues soloing skills that clearly outlines chord changes in a 12 bar blues progression.
There’s a lot of quality musical ideas in the building blocks that Jon shares.
He also is very detailed in explaining the fingering of the phrases. This makes this helpful to beginners who might be new or unsure of how to play these lines.
I particularly love the video backing tracks which give a simulated jamming with Jon Finn experience. This is helpful to make the practice session more interactive.
Don’t be deceived by the seemingly short one hour long video content. Although that might seem like a short duration for some people, the actual value is in the practice sessions you get with the video backing tracks.
These are videos that you can go through many times. I found myself jamming to them and coming up with new melodic ideas as well. The way Jon structured this is well thought out.
As the course goes on, the solo add more required parts to play as written and become increasingly more challenging to play. For me, I definitely needed to spend more time on some licks especially the ones with bends as those were more challenging. As you progress, you will end up learning 5 complete solos!
In addition to the single note solos, you also get 4 Rhythm Guitar parts that take you from simple to more complicated comping style. This is invaluable as you also get a chance to develop your rhythm playing in addition to your soloing in this one course.
In conclusion, I would recommend this course for any guitarist who has played some blues but been stuck in a one pentatonic scale for everything approach. This course is well organised and is beyond your typical “here are some licks and good luck” situation. Jon’s caring personality also comes across in the video which encourages you to work on the material. There’s no filler content here, just good quality straight to the point world class educational content.
Pros: A great course with well recorded video, audio, backing tracks and clearly notated in standard notation and tablature.
Cons: None.
TLDR: If you’re stuck playing only the pentatonic scale on the blues, this course might be able to help you to develop your single note soloing to greater heights.
You can buy this course here: http://bluesbuildingblocks.vhx.tv/
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