You may already know of Texas Blues Alley (or TXBA), you may know of it’s previous name StevieSnacks, and if so you will already know that Anthony Stauffer is an excellent teacher, a great blues guitarist and he creates excellent guitar tuition videos. If you are new to the site then let me give you a quick overview before I talk about this new lesson package, Jimi’s Influence.
StevieSnacks.com launched around 2007 after the popularity of Anthony’s short YouTube blues lessons that he had been uploading. A couple of years later StevieSnacks.com became a full time business for Anthony packed full of guitar lessons in the style of Stevie Ray Vaughan. This site then began to outgrow this initial niche focus and Anthony released lesson DVD packages focussing on the legendary 3 King’s, Freddie, Albert and B.B. (still available to purchase individually fromhttp://texasbluesalley.com/). Last year Anthony decided to rebrand as Texas Blues Alley and designed/built a brand new website which makes navigating courses and lessons super easy and there is even a bonus section that describes the gear used in each of his videos called the Gear Index as well as lots of free video content about tone, gear and mini lessons.
Jimi’s Influence is the latest course from TXBA which focusses on the blues playing of the legendary Jimi Hendrix. There are two lessons, each is a breakdown of a performance from Anthony in the style of a classic Hendrix blues track, Red House and Voodoo Chile (the epic 15 minute blues track from Electric Ladyland, not Slight Return). This package is available as a download for $55 or a DVD for $65. Each lesson includes a 60 bar solo which is included as a separate video and in the lesson video is broken down into licks which are then played at full speed, half speed and then taught note by note using Anthony’s very clever over the neck camera angle combined with a close up of his picking hand. Also included with the package are the backing track minus the performance and the tabs in both .pdf and Guitar Pro’s .gpx format. Check out the Red House solo performance below:
I should also mention that Anthony has also included a bar indicator for the performance, box breakdown and lesson videos which show not only the cycle of the 12 bars but also which is the current chord being played over, eg. I IV or V. The Box Breakdown also has another graphic which overlays which box position is being used on the neck during the solo performance, a nice bonus addition.
Both lessons are packed full of Hendrix riffs and Anthony captures the vibe of each track perfectly in his performance using a Malekko Helium Octave and Dunlop QZone to get some outrageous fuzzy cocked Wah tones and his Zexcoil loaded strat through a Fuchs Blackjack 21 MkII amplifier. It seems Anthony has gathered the perfect combination of gear for the rolled back volume clean licks, through to smooth overdrive and with the Helium in the mix a raspy fuzz overdrive.
If you are a fan of Jimi Hendrix or you are looking to extend your vocabulary of cool blues licks there is a ton of material for you to absorb in these 2 lessons, each HD lesson video is 1.5 hours long, nothing is rushed and is explained in detail. Anthony is an excellent teacher who is very concise and comfortable breaking down licks into their individual component parts to really make you understand all of the techniques necessary to play in a particular style. Check out http://texasbluesalley.com/jimifor more details or to purchase this course and make sure you also have a look around the rest of the site as there are free lessons, videos about gear and tone and mini courses and content is added all the time.
No comments:
Post a Comment