G3’s own John Petrucci provides instructional material, along with live G3 Tour Footage, backstage material with John, hilarious bloopers, the interactive feature of John’s Ernie Ball Guitar, a Dream Theater discography, DVD-ROM features, lots more.
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I’ve always been a fan of John Petrucci’s playing in Dream Theater and Liquid Tension Experiment, and when I purchased his Wild Stringdom book, I thought the DVD wouldn’t have much new information. That didn’t stop me from getting it, and it turned out that I was wrong.
In fact, if you’ve read Wild Stringdom, this is the perfect supplement. There isn’t much information overlap - most of the exercises are completely different and new. There’s also new information that wasn’t covered in the book.
Mr. Petrucci begins by showing some non-guitar warm-up exercises, and then proceeds to left-hand stretches on guitar. He also shows warm-ups for the picking hand, and then integrates the two. The warm-up section is very thorough, more so than that of most comparable videos that show only a lick or two for fast alternate picking.
The other sections deal with traditional technical issues such as subdivisions of time (very useful), working with the metronome to increase speed, and sweep picking. Petrucci also thoroughly covers the subject of inside picking, and how to get comfortable with it. Afterwards, he goes in-depth on lead construction by showing how to put together scale fragments - this also encompasses left-hand legato playing. Finally, there’s a section on chords, in which common “progressive” chords are covered.
The examples of the techniques explained range from easy to hard for each section. They grow in difficulty bit by bit, not everything all at once. Also, Petrucci covers the considerations in coming up with your own etudes.
In-between each section, Petrucci talks about how he approaches composition, playing in the band, early experiences, and stuff like that. This insight is interesting - it makes him seem more human if nothing else.
Additionally, Petrucci goes over his pre-Ernie Ball setup. In the DVD section, he also talks about his new Ernie Ball guitar, as well as gives a backstage tour before a DT show. There’s also a bloopers reel, where John is shows messing up several takes of various parts - such as the introduction. There is also G3 footage of John’s band from the 2001 tour with Satch and Vai - these fragments are short, but the video is decent quality.
This has the bang for the buck - two hours of instruction, plus the extras. The explanations are clear, and the booklet is very detailed - there are no typographical errors or anything like that. If you’re an intermediate player looking to spend $50 on an instructional video by a celebrity guitarist, this is probably your best bet.
I bought this never having heard the name or the work of John Petrucci. Wow. What a combination… he is a quiet, friendly guy with astonishing skill and speed. He shows you what’s possible, and how it’s done.
Once you see this guy play, there are 3 possibilities: 1.) You’ll see how good you could become, and use his advice to move in that direction; 2.) You’ll see how good you could become, ignore it and go back to doing whatever it was you were doing before; 3.) You’ll realize the futility of the situation, give up, and burn your guitar!
If you’ve been playing a while, and you’ve never gotten past the basics, you should look at this DVD and see what is beyond. Even if you don’t make it there, using even one or two techniques John shows will probably improve your playing.