DVDs

In this fully interactive DVD, one of the world’s leading classical guitarists, Carlos Bonell, performs 1 hour of the most recognized and loved pieces from the classical guitar repertoire. Pieces include "Lagrima", "Lute Suite in E Minor BWV996", "Recuerdos de la Alhambra", and more. Interactive menus allow you to view the performance by choosing to watch right hand or left hand in addition to the main footage, which allows a close-up perspective of the techniques employed! Carlos also gives a unique insight into his approach towards interpretation and performance of the pieces in both English and Spanish, as well as some advice on the techniques required to play each piece.

In this one-hour instructional DVD James Alan Shelton and George Shuffler demonstrate and teach the guitar techniques that helped change the role of the guitar in bluegrass music. The music of the Stanley Brothers and Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys has featured lead guitar work since Bill Napier and George Shuffler brought the guitar to the forefront of the Stanley’s music in the late 1950s. This video begins with James Alan Shelton, the current lead guitar player for Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys, picking a tune with the legendary George Shuffler. James then interviews George regarding the development of his “crosspicking” guitar technique. George demonstrates the technique and provides a guitar solo to one of the tunes he helped to make a bluegrass standard, “Will You Miss Me.” George and James then pick “Katy Dear” together and demonstrate their crosspicking talents.

The instructional portion of the video begins with James Alan Shelton demonstrating the crosspicking roll and providing several exercises which will serve to train your right hand to gain skill with the crosspicking technique. James then teaches a “turnaround” to “Rank Stranger” which utilizes the crosspicking technique to “fill in the gaps” between vocal lines. He then shows how to take the simple melody line of a song, “Uncloudy Day,” and incorporate the crosspicking technique between the melody notes. Next, James teaches a crosspicking break to “Bury Me Beneath the Weeping Willow” and follows that tune by demonstrating how to transform a Carter style guitar solo into a crosspicking solo using the song “Wildwood Flower” as an example.

The next section of the video features James teaching two of his original flatpicking tunes “Road to Coeburn” and “Tom’s Creek.” This is followed by a fingerstyle performance of Ralph Stanley’s favorite guitar number, “Cannonball Blues.” James concludes the instructional portion of the video by talking about his selection of guitar strings, picks, and capos and provides “tricks of the trade” to help you keep your flatpick in good shape. George and James both talk about their signature model Huss & Dalton guitars and the video concludes with George and James picking “Banks of the Ohio” together. All of the songs that are taught in the video are transcribed in the accompanying transcription book.

The level of musicality that Clive displays is truly astonishing, one not automatically present in even the most skilled of professional guitarists. Stylistically, Clive’s compositions rove eclectically and brilliantly through and across genre boundaries. Clive’s composition Aerial Discoveries is an homage to Michael Hedges. “With his use of two-handed tapping, Michael broke down musical barriers.” Carroll says, “allowing a refreshing new range of homophonic and polyphonic textures to evolve.” Carroll’s Farewell is a lyrical creation directly inspired by Clive’s Irish upbringing. This composition display Clive’s superb sense of rhythm, external and internal, and his unerring feel for pace, knowing just when and how to let the music breathe Most of Carroll’s compositions are in standard tuning. Snake Bite Boogie, which he wrote for one of his students is particularly tricky. “Roger’s got this extraordinary ability to learn everything I give him from memory by the next lesson,” Clive says. “So one week, feeling a bit evil, I gave him this and said, ‘Right then Roger, see you next week!’”

This DVD accompanies the book of the same title. It will take you from basic concepts in blues guitar through performance level blues solos and techniques.

This comprehensive DVD course was designed for guitarists who want a more complete understanding of country style guitar. Joe Carr teaches the fundamentals of country guitar including major, minor and 7th chord forms, major scales and flatpicking techniques. Other topics include the Nashville number system, pentatonic and blues scales, 6th and 9th chords, pedal steel licks, swing chords, the echo trick, country rock lead styles and more.

In this three DVD lesson series Stefan Grossman explores the world of Country Blues Guitar. It is a fascinating and challenging study that covers blues, folk and ragtime arrangements in the the keys of A, C, D, E and G. Each tune is discussed and taught phrase by phrase and played slowly on a split screen so that you can clearly see what each hand is doing. You will learn about the playing styles and techniques of legendary blues guitarists as Rev. Gary Davis, Frank Stokes, Blind Blake, Blind Boy Fuller, Mance Lipscomb, Lightnin' Hopkins, Mississippi John Hurt, Willie Brown, Robert Johnson, Sam McGee, Lonnie Johnson and Elizabeth Cotten. A detailed 56 page tab/music booklet is included with this collection.

Rare footage of Mississippi John Hurt, Rev. Gary Davis, Furry Lewis, Big Bill Broonzy, Jesse Fuller, Elizabeth Cotten, Lightnin' Hopkins, Mance Lipscomb and Son House is also presented.

Lesson One: Key of C: Freight Train, It Won't Be Long, Buck Dancer's Choice, Candyman, Salty Dog Blues, Ragtime Mama Blues and Blake's Rag. 63 minutes.

Lesson Two: Keys of G and A: Spike Driver's Blues, Shake Sugaree, Ragged and Dirty, Blues licks in A, Willie Mae, Spoonful and Robert Johnson blues licks in A. 65 minutes.

Lesson Three: Keys of D and E: Lightnin' Hopkins blues licks in E, Stagolee, Take A Whiff On Me, Tribute To Lonnie Johnson, Charley James and Avalon Blues. 68 minutes.

Open tunings have always been an integral part of the Country Blues Guitar tradition. In this approach the guitar is tuned to a full chord. Most blues players began playing the guitar in an open tuning as it made playing much easier yet gave the guitar a much stronger and richer sound. For a minimum of effort you can produce a maximum of sound, rhythm and music.

The most popular Country Blues tunings were the Open G tuning, also called Spanish tuning and the Open D tuning, also called Vestapol tuning. Also used by a few Delta guitarists such as Skip James and Bukka White was the Crossnote tuning where your guitar is tuned to an Open Em chord. In this lesson we will explore all three tunings with seven exciting fingerstyle blues arrangements. Also discussed are Delta blues ideas in Open G tuning as well as applying bottleneck techniques in an open tuning setting.

Each tune is taught phrase by phrase and the played slowly on a split-screen. A detailed tab/music booklet is included.

Tunes include: Open D Tuning: Vestapol, John Henry, If You Don't Want Me • Open G Tuning: Working On The New Railroad, Special Rider Blues • Crossnote Tuning: Hard Time Killin' Floor Blues and I'm So Glad.

Few folk or blues enthusiasts need to be introduced to Dave Van Ronk, the extraordinary singer and guitarist. His name is inextricably linked, first and foremost, to the folk music scene in New York City's Greenwich Village in the 1960s. He played with and knew virtually everyone of musical significance in that decade. Familiarly known as "The Mayor of MacDougal Street," Van Ronk presided over an apartment that served as hangout pad/salon to peers like Bob Dylan, Odetta, Tom Paxton and Peter Yarrow, and a virtual graduate school to the next generation of guitarists, some of whom, like Christine Lavin, achieved broad popularity in their own right.

Dave Van Ronk played the sort of music he liked, with small regard for the boundaries that normally separate jazz and blues and country and folk. He proved in practice that those distinctions don't mean very much. His performances were stripped down to the essentials: emotional and musical honesty. He was a unique individual and musical figure. An engaging raconteur and gourmet cook, he enjoyed sipping wine and spinning philosophical tales and aphorisms deep into the night. "Honesty is the cruelest game of all," he once observed, "Because not only can you hurt someone -- and hurt them to the bone -- you can feel self-righteous about it at the same time."

In the Spring of 2001 Dave asked Stefan Grossman to organize the filming of his New York City Bottom Line performance. Eight months later Dave passed away. He was sixty-five years old.

Dave Van Ronk was one of the central figures in the folk movement which flourished during the late 1950s and early 1960s and nurtured such performers as Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs and Peter, Paul and Mary. He was the founding father of the blues and ragtime guitar revival and played an important roll in presenting this music to a wider audience. He emerged from this era as one of the most distinctive folk blues performers with a tough, gravelly voice and an intricate and delicate guitar style combined with a colorful, bawdy and powerful personality. His impact on the way in which people play guitar, and how the notion of 'interpretation' -- particularly within the folk and blues idiom -- is viewed, has arguably had a deep and lasting impact, one which will resound long, long after he is gone. Two years before Dave passed away it was suggested to him that we could release his 1980 concert recorded in Athens, Ohio but that it would be interesting to do an interview with his memories of that concert as well as stories about the tunes he performed. The idea was to combine this interview with the concert footage recorded over twenty years earlier. Dave was a great story teller and it was a joy to listen to his stories as well as the concert performance which presented Dave's music at its finest.

Dave Van Ronk’s FOLK, BLUES & RAGTIME, spans a wide variety of exciting and powerful music. The blues of Leroy Carr and Scrapper Blackwell; the “old fashion” picking of Rev. Gary Davis; the ragtime bounce of Blind Blake; the sophisticated blues of Brownie McGhee; the country blues of Jim Jackson; a children’s ring song and a Van Ronk original, all receive the unique Dave Van Ronk treatment. Each arrangements is discussed and explained in detail. This is a complete lesson for the intermediate guitarist that clearly illustrates how traditional music can be placed in a fingerstyle setting. A detailed tab/music instructional booklet is included as a PDF file on the DVD.

In this instructional DVD Denis Azabagic offers technical and interpretive tips on performing two of the most famous pieces in the classical guitar repertoire: La Catedral by Agustín Barrios Mangoré and Introduction and Variations on a Theme by Mozart, Opus 9 by Fernando Sor. On a master-class level, Azabagic presents insightful technical advice, fingering suggestions and problem-solving exercises as well as a musical overview of each piece by movement or variation. While this DVD is specifically designed for those who wish to improve their performance of these two masterpieces, Azabagic’s insights on musicianship and interpretation can be applied to virtually any composition.

Clients can best appreciate Azabagic’s virtuosity and instruction by owning both this video (99653DVD) plus either the Guitar Foundation of America group performance DVD International Guitar Competition Winners, Vol.1 (21366DVD), or Azabagic’s solo performance DVD- Classic Guitar Artistry (98407DVD) - which contain the Barrios and Sor/Mozart works in their entirety.

Imagine you've stumbled into a juke joint where the mentor of Robert Johnson, Son House, and the idol of the Rolling Stones, Howlin' Wolf, "dis" one another. Picture a place where Wolf taunts Bukka White while the robust Parchman Farm alumnus spins his proto-funk dance grooves and the spectral Skip James weaves his haunting Devil Got My Woman. It's an archetypal blues "crossroads" where legends of the 1920s Delta and 1950s Chicago share the same musical space, suspended out of time in a super-real present, a non-specific "bluestime."

This is no fantasy. You enter this very juke joint in this video of extraordinarily powerful footage Alan Lomax captured during the 1966 Newport Folk Festival. Devil Got My Woman is not, however, concert footage from Newport. Alan Lomax recreated a juke joint at Newport, stocked the bar, and let nature take its course. The resultant film footage captures the blues experience in its first and truest milieu, one in which African-American men and women drink, dance, and share their troubles and triumphs.

Brooding faces absorbing the wailing pleas of Son House and rubber-legged dancers strutting to Bukka's buoyant blues are as much a part of the mise-en-scene as the legendary principals of the cast.

A 30-page booklet featuring biographical material, rare photographs, and details on the tunes performed on this DVD can be accessed and downloaded from guitarvideos.com

Although designed for the intermediate Dobro® player, resonator guitarists at all levels can benefit from the topics discussed in this workshop video. Phil addresses: creating breaks, building speed, backing up a vocalist, dynamics, and working in a band, and offers lots of shortcuts to playing the Dobro®. Several songs are performed with split- screen views of the left and right hands, and many licks are tabbed out onscreen. Additional topics include: proper microphone techniques for stage and studio and tips for buying a resonator guitar. This comprehensive workshop DVD covers all the bases!

Doc Watson is widely regarded as today's finest flatpicking guitarist. He is a living treasury of Americana. In this Ramblin' concert recorded in 1980, Doc is joined by his son Merle on guitar and banjo and by Michael Coleman on bass. Their performance is a showcase of native folk traditions and a display of distinctive stylistic inventions. Visits with Doc and Merle at home in Deep Gap, North Carolina, and in concert in Rock Hill, South Carolina, are also included.

Doc Watson and David Grisman have been friends since the 1960's when the then teenage Grisman was knocking out veteran performers at New York City folk clubs. For Doc, aside from the pleasures of picking with an old friend, the rewards of playing with David are simple: "He knows music...he knows what it's about." Coming from a master musician, that is the highest of praise. In this unique concert video, Doc and David along with Doc’s touring partner, guitarist Jack Lawrence, present their blend of country, jazz, bluegrass, old-time, and folk music. Running time: 70 minutes

This collection of rarely seen DVD performances illustrate the power and range of Doc's talents and the evolution of his performance style. His music ranges from flatpicking guitar instrumentals, a harmonica solo, acapella gospel singing, frailing banjo to fingerstyle guitar and warm vocals. The tapestry of sounds Doc wove during his first two decades performing outside North Carolina unfolds in these enduring and inspiring performances.

This DVD features performances of Doc Watson ranging from his 1950s musical partner, pianist Jack Williams, to his son Merle (seen playing exquisite slide guitar)... Also with Ricky Skaggs (singing and playing mandolin in a Monroe Brothers style set), and a stellar string and featuring Mark O'Connor, Tony Rice, Bela Fleck, David Grisman and Jerry Douglas. This collection ends with a solo set from Doc which brings his music full circle to the straightforward simplicity with which it was first presented during the 1960s folk revival.

Recorded at the 1992 Merle Watson Festival in Wilkesboro, North Carolina, this incredible jam session brings together five masters of flatpicking guitar - Doc Watson, Tony Rice, Dan Crary, Jack Lawrence and Steve Kaufman. Together they harmonize, improvise and burn the classics and hot guitar instrumentals. Two bonus tracks are also included of Doc playing with his friends David Grisman, Bela Fleck, Mark O'Connor, Tim O'Brien, Roland White, Jerry Douglas, T. Michael Coleman and others. All in all, an amazing 60 minutes of great picking.

Douglas Niedt began his study of the guitar at age 7 and polished his playing to gem-like brilliance through his studies at the Julliard School, the Segovia Master Classes in Spain and with Narcisco Yepes, Christopher Parkening, Jorge Morel and Oscar Ghiglia. At age 17, international recognition followed his 1st prize sweep of the first Chet Atkins International Guitar Competition in which 300 guitarists were entered. At age 21, Douglas made his New York debut in Carnegie Recital Hall. After his debut the New York Times declared, "There was no doubt that he was a gifted performer. His playing was highly colored, his pitch exact, his phrasing precise."

Expand your playing into the more exotic personalities of the acoustic guitar! This superb DVD provides an easy-to-learn method for learning Caribbean, South American and Spanish styles that can work well in all musical situations, from rock and pop to blues and bossa nova. Learn about: authentic flamenco techniques; rasgueado and golpe techniques; innovative plucking and strumming; the samba style; rhumba; reggae; bossa nova and recommended guitars and strings.