Search - Fretboard Roadmaps on DVD

Ready to start playing lead guitar?

SoCal Guitarist | Thousand Oaks, CA | 02/04/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"If you're looking for production values, rent The Matrix. If you want to learn your way around the fretboard, this is a great place to start. No DVD can teach you everything, but this one is a great overview and introduction to scales and soloing techniques. The DVD illustrates, very well, various concepts that can be used to improvise in any key and in any style of music.

If you've been playing guitar for a while, are comfortable playing rhythm, but your soloing is pretty much limited to solos you've learned or worked out ahead of time, this DVD is a great next step. The lessons are easy to follow. If you take your time and work your way through all the lessons, you'll definitely become a much better player. Also, as you improvise and start to find your way around the fretboard, moving from one lesson concept to another, you'll start to see how it's all tied together.

DVDs that teach you 50 Licks are good, but learning licks doesn't help you understand how and why things work. Save your money on private guitar lessons and start here. I cannot recommend this one enough... Thanks Fred!
"

Fast Track to Improvising, Solos and Lead

Matthew W. Bovee | Baldwin City, KS United States | 08/05/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"One of the other reviews panned this DVD for moving too fast through the material. Maybe so, though I didn't feel it was paced too quickly. If you're an absolute beginner, yes this is going to be like trying to drink from a firehose when you need small sips. More than you need, too fast, in too large a volume, to take it all in at once. But I have a suggestion...it's a DVD, so just do a little bit at a time, pause or loop it, take time to practice it, and then move on to the next bit. The instructor even suggests you take it a bit a time. And if it's too quiet in spots, use earphones or listen harder. It's worth it.

I've been taking lessons and practicing (far too little) for about two years, and so the chord shapes and some of the practical theory that Sokolow lays out so well was familiar. The way he brings it all together is fantastic. Even a total beginner would benefit tremendously from taking the time to work through this incredible set of practical material. Believe me when I say this is one of the best, condensed, easy-to-grasp fast tracks to learning skills that will have you improvising rhythm chords, solo riffs and full lead parts in any chord or key. Get the book if you like, but hearing and seeing Sokolow walk you through the chord structures, the relationships, the embellishments and how to apply them is incredibly useful.

You could take most of the sections on the DVD and have fun playing around with them and improvising as practice material. A DIY lesson plan. That's what I'm going to do. You could ramp up your skills 'till your friends start wondering if you're channeling a guitar god. If that gets old, plug in the amp (or switch to acoustic if you started with melting a Marshall), and try for some other tasty tones while you groove in the know how. There is sooooo much rich material here.

FYI, so you know I'm not just fawning over the first applied theory book I've seen, I've got absolutely REAMS of other guitar materials, including Fretboard Logic (FL). I'd have to say that FL is more cerebral, harder to put immediately into practice, while 'Roadmaps' is much more immediately useful. And I like cerebral stuff. But, ten minutes into Sokolow's DVD and I was thinking "Heck, I can do SO MUCH with this, right away!" Both FL and 'Roadmaps' are good. I see just FL as being the layer to add on to the "right away" skills and knowledge that Sokolow teaches, once I've put them to use. That said, you could really groove in Fretboard Roadmaps and do so much that you might not need or want FL. For me, finding Fretboard Roadmaps after digging through all these other things is like finally finding the pot o' gold at the end of the rainbow.

If you want a condensed set of skills and knowledge that you can easily and immediately start learning and using, and that will take you a long, long, LONG way towards adding your own chords and licks anywhere at any time, this is it. Can't thank you enough, Fred!"