Search - Adam Kadmon: The Guitar Grimoire - Progressions and Improvisation on DVD

The worst of the worst

David A. Kaplowitz | Havertown, PA USA | 06/07/2008

(1 out of 5 stars)

"I saw this pop up on Netfl*x a few weeks back. Even though I don't like his Grimoire books (I explain some why below), I was vaguely interested in seeing how this guy played/sounded. I figured anyone who makes these really boring books that print out the same patterns over and over again in every key might surprise me and actually be interesting to check out. Sadly I was wrong about that. All I can say is I want my 45 minutes back!

1) The guy sounds like a bedroom player who can't play. He has no rhythm feel, no dynamics, bends out of tune, and OMG don't even get me started on his "tone"!
2) The production is incredibly poor ---it looks like the cheapest "pro" level production you can get away with before it starts looking like you did it with your cell phone camera.
3) I'm not a religious guy, and I'm a long time metal fan, but the stupid semi-satanic sets were just too corny for words.
4) Why do I get the feeling he's wearing a robe and hiding his face to hide being fat and bald?

The Grimoire series is nothing but a few very simple concepts (and sometimes just some patterns) redundantly printed over and over again in every key in order to waste as much paper as possible -- and to fool an unwitting guitar student into thinking he's getting his money's worth. If you really want to learn your instrument, learn the concept, then apply it yourself to the instrument. Don't look on page 213 for an F# harmonic minor (because you only know it in A). Why give this sucker 20 bucks to show you something you can do yourself by moving your hand down a minor third? It's a bad way to learn. Listen to how he plays if you want to see the results of this method. So why is he selling so many books (and now DVDs)? O right, the books are nicely presented with nice fonts and cool looking charts. Who cares if the content sucks, it looks cool, right? Well this DVD throws the presentation out the window, so you can't even fall back on that. Don't say I didn't warn you."