I saw an infomercial on TV for this DVD guitar course. It stated Learn to play great guitar in minutes, not months!

I am really depressed! Minutes? Months? I must be really stupid! I've been playing and studying for almost 50 years and I am still learning. All that time, all those teachers, all that money. I could have gotten this done in minutes for $39.95!

This joker has been discussed here before. I've never seen the infomercial, so I can't say much about it except from what I've read here, this guy sounds like a joke.
Whitefang

I'm just as stupid as you are Fred and I'll bet you play better than me...so where do I send this $39.95? (Just kidding)...

I'll save you the time and money. Tune your 6th String down to 'D', barre across the top three strings, and spend the rest of your life playing one-finger Ramones & Green Day songs. Congratulations, you're a Rock-and-Roll idiot!

Sarcasm aside, I've heard rumors of at least one chain of guitar schools, using this method to teach young players. Some of the high-school kids who taught there, came to our shop for lessons, and they swore that was all they were allowed to show their students, the Dropped-D one-finger barre chord technique. Anybody want to start a music school?

Hey Winston,

When you talk about the "top three strings" are you discussing 6(E),5(A),4(D) or are you discussing 3-2-1 (G-B-E)?

Larry,

I'll bet we both make good music!

6th, 5th & 4th, Fred, or there'd be no point in de-tuning the 6th string.

W o w . . . . !?

Winston,

Thanks for the clarification. I usually think of the top strings as the "4th string set" (3-2-1).

There are guys (ie. like Brain Setzer) and others that tune the 6th string down to D and use it for a deep bass sound while playing the open D chord...Brian also uses this technique for lower bass notes on boodie runds like on Rock This Town...you have to remember to finger your other 6th string chords and notes using the 6th string a whole step (2 frets) up...

Fred

There's nothing wrong with using Dropped-D for that, or for heavy sounding low-register riffing; it's a tool. But there's EVERYTHING wrong with using it as a crutch in supposed teaching and limiting- effectively "FOOT-BINDING" and HANDICAPPING!- students with such a gimmick that is so fruitless and harmful in the long run. It may seem at the outset to be a shortcut to instant gratification, but it is really cheating the students!

My comment was directed more toward WinstonPsmith's "there would be no point in de-tuning the 6th string." It was not suggesting Foot-Binding and Handicapping students by teaching them shortcuts or gimmicks...I think all students should learn the guitar in standard tuning and be introduced to altered tunings when and if they become interested.

Oh, no, no, Larry! Larry! I was aiming all THAT at the people who are up to these shady shenanigans, such as-



- and NOT at you or anyone else here! I did not mean to give that impression, please accept my apology and explanation! I was agreeing with your example of cool ways that Dropped-D can be used in an interesting, musical way. And I LOVE Open- and Alternate-Tunings in general, as well.

No apology necessary Caevan and I agree with your comments completely. Those shady shenanigans teachers need to be run out of town! I know your heart is always in the right place and you always give great advice!!

Sad to say, I believe the young guy who told me about the one-finger chord method, because I later heard the same thing from at least two more of our guitar students. They were coming in and taking lessons from our teachers, and also 'teaching' guitar at the place down the street.

Funny how we don't see this sort of scam in other skills - "Become a Nuclear Physicist in 10 Easy Lessons, Only $39.99" or "Learn Neurosurgery At Home with our handy DVD!"

Uh-oh! Here we go AGAIN!
Whitefang

I had to dig this up after running across the informercial. I'll be honest with those of you that have not seen it. It makes good comedy. I keep waiting for him to break into Smoke On The Water. Best moment of the show? It comes right after he demeans the need to learn different chord fingerings because you can play everything you want with a simple bar chord The show then goes into a transition and he starts playing the way he says you don't need to play, with real chords. There are a lot of valuable lessens to be learned watching the show. Not guitar lessons. Editing. For example, the section where he teaches you how to play a simple blues progression using open strings for the root. He shows you the I and IV part of the progressions, but whenever it is time for V which would call for fingering the root, ... edited. I would like to know who these "world best guitarists" are that take lessons from him.

I bought my great-nephiew a guitar for Christmas. I hope he never sees this misinfomercial.

I think Ralph Paul is incredible. For two reasons:

1. He's probably convince people to actually BUY his method.

2. He somehow manages to SLEEP at night!

Whitefang

ah, the Ramones or i should say Johnny played regular chords not drop d. as does Greenday.
not a fan of punk i take it.

any hoo, i can dig drop d and i do use it sometimes but i still throw different chord inversions on top of the low string riffing. in fact i will try things in drop d tuning and then switch over and duplicate it in std. as well as the opposite.
my son uses both std and drop d.

as for learning how to play in a short time i guess this dude has realized most people are too lazy to really learn and want instant results. just like weight loss pills and six pack ab exercisers. there is a market and he is only robbing the stupid.

This clown is on TV as I type this. I have it on in the other room.

You know, I realized that when you guys discuss the "Drop D" tuning, you're actually discussing a D5 power chord (D-A-D or 1-5-1). No wonder they teach it to kids. It enables them to play "SOMETHING THAT SOUNDS MUSICAL with absolutely no knowledge whatsoever (although you need to know the intervals of the root notes on the 6th string).

I sometimes use Drop D to create an octave bass when I play Travis style.

Nah, 'Zan, I saw many of the great Punk bands, back in the 80's, including the Ramones, and yes, Johnny punished those barre chords. I'm just not a fan of marketing BS, and given the one-finger barre chord technique, you wouldn't be able to do much more with it than imitate some of the simplest riffs ever pounded out.

Back on topic, I just saw part of the Ralph Paul infomercial the other day - part of some mid-day filler on one of the news networks, which seemed odd. I caught the part where he hands some young woman a Strat, and shows her a "Blues" riff, if I dare to call it that. Pretty sad. Overall, he looks like a guy who would be selling maps to movie stars' homes, or some other scam, if he wasn't doing this.

I used that a LOT back in my old "folkie" days. I always liked the way it sounds.
Whitefang

Hey Whitefang,

What kind of music are you playing these days? What floats your boat?

Regards.

Well, as you know by now, my playing days are on hold. But when I DO play, it's mostly noodling around and coming up with different chord patterns and creating progressions as if I'm writing a song or something. Mostly in the blues vein. Or some other type of non-descript genre. Certainly nothing fancy or "cutting edge".

The kind of music that "floats my boat" is usually beyond my playing skills. Which is why I was determined to practice more.
Whitefang

i never had the pleasure of seeing this guy, i don't watch a lot of TV ( Duck Dynasty is about it). but i do realize he is milking the same consumer base that has more money than brains.
i am sure that a few people who really want to learn will get caught in the BS which is unfortunate.

Yeah, I hear you. That's the reason I'm so addicted to Chord Melody. Every chart is challenging. Every chart makes me work. It is so much fun to play!! I never get bored. I have literally hundreds of solos, contained in several books. If I want to challenge myself, I open one of the books and learn one of the solos. It's great!!

I haven't seen the dude either, and I don't know if he's a smarmy scam-man or what. But, I gotta say he may be doing something good. I think anybody who gets kids involved with playing guitar is doing us all a favor.

Even if he's not teaching anything technically challenging, beginners don't usually get anything too difficult for a while. We all had to start somewhere, and a drop D tuning to produce some tough-sounding power chords isn't necessarily a bad place to start from. If a beginner gets hooked on playing because he can play something he likes from the git-go, isn't that better than he/she/it getting bored with working on scales and whatnot and just dropping the whole thing? The people who get hooked on playing will take that as a beginning and build on it.

Speaking as a kid who had to deal with ADD back in the days when nobody ever heard of it, instant gratification of at least a minor point of learning anything had a way of getting me interested enough to stick with something for a while. Anything that took ages to get into my head was left behind pretty quickly. I started out on guitar because I became obsessed with how to make the sound I heard when The Animals played House Of The Rising Sun. My technical accomplishment was learning 5 cowboy chords and a picking pattern. I could have left it there, but I got so fascinated by playing that I kept at it. 45 years later, I'm still at it.
If a sleazeball TV huckster can get some kids hooked on guitar with some dropped D power chords, I'm at least partially cool with it. In fact, I think it's far superior to having the same kids hooked on video games or developing carpal tunnel from texting their friends non-stop from the age of 8 to 18.

I'd never heard of this guy, so I just looked up his website.

Yeah, I'm all for getting beginner students to make some kind of musical noise as soon as possible. Once a kid...or adult...could play 5 notes on strings 1&2 I'd teach them a very simple version of Ode to Joy. Alright, now you're playing some Beethoven! Oh, by the way you can now read 5 notes on a musical stave...it's a good skill to have.

So, I agree with Picker that getting kids interested in the first place is important. And it looks like the lessons in question actually get to scales and chords and important info.

What is so offensive (and I mean REALLY offensive) about this stuff is the 'get pro results in minutes' shtick...'stop studying and start playing'...the inference that a pro teacher is ripping you off because you can't rip out licks immediately.

+ 1 Zan, he is going after the infomercial crowd.

Learning guitar was never easy for anyone. It takes dedication & daily practice (even when you don't want to). It is just a hype to sell books or DVD or CD lessons. I ignore all that stuff.