Learn Blues Guitar - Teacher Now Blows His Trumpet

I'm a blues man who makes his living by a) gigging and b) selling my guitar lessons on the internet.

That's me, on the right - dressed for business in my business suit. Self promotion has gradually become a dirty word on the internet (or a dirty 'two words'), obviously due to the fact that around 80% of the stuff you read on the net is promoting something that the author wants you to buy.

The strange thing is this - very often, the article, hub, lense or whatever, doesn't really get to the point. For example, an article might discuss the problem of enormously long toe nails shredding your socks, and then contain links to a magic pair of automatic scissors you might be selling. Are we all so stupid? Well, not really, but it's becoming the norm because its seen as bad to self-promote.

An even stranger thing is that this kind of mentality doesn't reflect commercial activity in the 'real world'. Sellers advertise with great big boards by the side of the motorway, TV adverts, mail shots, newspaper spreads and any other means available. There's no one screaming 'self promotion, self promotion'.

Of course, the web is rife with outrageous advertising claims, in all fields of commerce. We are all familiar with the type ' $ 96,000 per day with 3 clicks of the mouse'. I can understand how these promotions developed - people need to get noticed in a very busy and fast moving environment, but come on guys. Let's get real for the people out there. You won't be playing killer guitar in 7 days, even if you manage not to make those 3 awful mistakes that 99% of all guitarists make. Maybe you'll be doing OK in a few years - it's all up to you. It takes hundreds of hours practice, dedication and no short cuts.

This is where I get to the point ('about time', I hear you say). I'M PROMOTING MY GUITAR LESSONS! There, it's done. I'm proud of them, they took me a lot of work to produce and I've got hundreds (probably thousands by now) of really contented customers.

The main article contains an independent review that I like and post on my web-site.

Would you like to progress beyond strumming basic chords, and learn some more challenging ways of playing such as blues picking and slide guitar techniques? Or maybe you've got some experience with finger style guitar, and want to know how to play the blues?

This complete Blues & Ragtime Finger Picking Guitar lesson package presents many detailed video lessons with full tablature, that show how to play finger style acoustic blues, ragtime blues and bottleneck guitar, in the style of the legendary blues men such as Blind Blake, Blind Boy Fuller, and Robert Johnson.

Every video lesson in the package teaches how you can play blues guitar by featuring a complete song in a particular style, taking it section by section, before explaining how these parts fit together.

Course Creator

Jim Bruce is an experienced performer in the acoustic blues & ragtime genre, having produced several albums up to date. He also plays this kind of guitar music on the streets and in the cafes of Europe, and so he's gathered three decades of real experience in finger picking blues guitar. He gives us the benefit this experience throughout the course - take one example, when we start the video lesson for Big Bill Broonzy's 'Key To The Highway', Jim teaches the 'normal' and 'street' version of this song, and this 'street' way of playing is geared more towards live performance in a noisy environment (i.e. street or boisy bar!) This is a great way to learn the blues.

Package Contents - What You Get

The complete course consists of 36 quality compressed WMV or MOV video files on data-disk, together with files in PDF format of complete tablature to go along with the videos. Each of the videos contains a complete in-depth lesson on learning one chosen blues/ragtime song, for example 'TRuckin' Little Baby' (Blind Blake), or 'Crossroads' (Robert Johnson). All you have to do is insert the data disk in your computer, choose your lesson and it plays like a normal video.

In addition, immediately after payment, an instant download link can be accessed, which means that you can start on some lessons while waiting for your package to be delivered.

Course Description - What's inside the Complete Blues Guitar Lessons Package?

Each individual lesson begins with Jim presenting the whole tune, at the correct tempo. This is super to watch, although it can seem a little unsettling, as you realize you will be learning to play the same song! Then the lesson begins, as Jim split the song right down into short, manageable parts which can be worked on in a practice session. Jim also slows it right down, which makes it it simple to follow along.

During the relevant sections of the video, the tablature and chord/fingering charts are displayed on the screen, making it easy to understand.

One thing that can seem difficult when you're learning to play blues guitar, is matching the picking action of the right hand, with changing chords and fretting strings with the other. In each of the lessons, Jim presents close up shots of both the right hand picking technique and the left hand chord positions, so you can see more easily what's happening. Each of the short sections of the song are then put together, so you can rapidly develop towards playing more complete parts of the song.

In some of the videos (e.g. Crossroads), Jim additionally covers how to play slide or bottleneck blues guitar, which is the roots of a legendary 'blues' genre. The visual parts on this are explicit, including great close ups, and Jim offers some useful tips on how best to use the slide, for example, on how to damp down the strings with your bottle neck hand, which is crucial in order to make a nice guitar sound.