First off, we need to start our review of the Blues Guitar Spotlight Series by mentioning that the course is published by the folks over at Legacy Learning Systems, the creators of Learn and Master Guitar and Learn and Master Piano, the winners of the Acoustic Guitar Magazine Players’ Choice Awards, Two Telly Awards, AEGIS Award for Excellence in Education. The main reason that we wanted to say this up front is for you to already have an idea of the course.
Blues Guitar Spotlight
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Ease of use - 7/10
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Quality - 9/10
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Support - 5/10
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Price - 8/10
7.3/10
Summary
Blues Guitar Spotlight is a DVD course from the makers of Learn and Master Guitar, the most popular DVD guitar learning course. Blues guitar spotlight consists of 6 DVDs, a lesson book, and backing track CDs. The course itself is useful for beginner-intermediate players, but because of the $99 price tag, you might want to consider an online lesson site.
If you’ve seen the other music lessons by these guys, you’ll already know that you get immense quality material at higher prices than simple online guitar lessons, since just like Legacy’s other courses, the Blues Guitar Spotlight Series comes in DVD format and is shipped to your doorway.
Disclosure: The reviews written on this site are carried it by professionals, who receive compensation from the companies whose products we review. We test each product thoroughly and recommend only what we believe to be the very best. We are independently owned and the opinions expressed here are our own.
While reviewing the Learn and Master Blues Guitar course, we were pleased to see that Steve Krenz was chosen to be the instructor for this set of DVDs as well, just like with Learn and Master Guitar. Steve has exceptional teaching skills, in that he takes the time to explain things in a step-by-step manner, which makes this course suitable for beginner guitarists as well as intermediate players. The course includes 6 professionally produced lesson DVDs, a jam along DVD and CD, and a supplementary lessons book.
As with all Legacy Learning Systems products, this course is produced to the highest of quality, offering an in-depth, step-by-step guide to learning to play the blues. It doesn’t just teach a couple of blues licks like other blues lessons, it teaches everything a guitarist needs to really learn the blues, from musical understanding, concepts, chords, techniques, to riffs. This thorough, step-by-step method of teaching the blues guitar, as well as the exceptional level of production, has earned this course our Editors Choice Award for Learning Blues Guitar.
NEW! Bundle Discount
(Updated on Dec/03/2024)
If you buy the Blues Guitar Spotlight Series, you get the Guitar Setup Spotlight course at half price
!
With the Learn and Master Guitar Blues Spotlight DVD course, you’ll learn the notes, chords, and form that make up the blues, as well as build a strong repertoire of ready-to-use riffs that can immediately be incorporated into your playing. Of course, the main strength of the course is that you’ll learn every aspect of playing the blues, allowing you to improvise blues licks, runs and patterns to your liking.
A couple of the great features of the course are the “Hearing the Blues” ear training exercises incorporated into the individual lesson sessions, the in-depth interviews with legendary blues guitarists Jack Pearson & Johnny Hiland, and the high quality jam track DVD, which allows you to play along with a real band and see the music sheets on the TV screen at the same time.
Blues Guitar Spotlight Series Screenshots
What you’ll learn with the Blues Guitar Spotlight course:
To put it simply, you’ll learn the blues. Not just playing it, but also appreciating it, understanding the theory, as well as the techniques used by blues guitarists.
- Fast shuffles
- Slow 12/8 blues
- Blues in all keys
- Blues guitar techniques (bends, pull-offs, palm muting, and slide playing)
- Blues notes
- Blues scales
- Pentatonic scales
- Blues chord progressions
- Blues riffs
- Identify the techniques used in blues songs by ear
Ease of Use
The Blues guitar video tutorials are well structures, and build onto one another. You’ll start with the basics, and build your knowledge one step at a time. The course leaves no holes in your blues knowledge, but as always, its up to the students to put it to use afterwards. Steve Krenz’s teaching style is concise, thorough, and easy to understand.
What You Get with the Learn and Master Guitar Blues Spotlight
- 6 DVDs containing the main video lessons, all of which incorporate on screen tabs ands chord charts.
- 1 DVD and CD filled with backing tracks to play along with
- A lesson booklet, which supplements the video course
DVD Contents
- DVD: The basics and form of the blues, 7th chords, I,IV,V progression and analysis of the chords, building riffs around the chords
- DVD: The blues note, Boogie Woogie 5th pattern
- DVD: Major scale, pentatonic scale, blues scale, blues picking technique, blues patterns, bends
- DVD: Advances chords, vibrato, major 6th vs dominant 7th chords, finger positions
- DVD: Intervals, expression techniques, choosing notes
- DVD: Chord variations and voicings, playing with a band, playing by ear
- DVD: Video jam tracks and interviews
Pros:
- Huge database of video lessons, enough for a lifetime, with new lessons being added weekly.
- Very well structured, thorough blues guitar course, teaching everything the genre demands.
- High quality production of video lessons, with on-screen tablature, making the lessons easier to follow.
- The book is easy to understand, and complements the video tutorials well.
- Great for beginner-intermediate guitarists.
- The instructor has a great teaching style, makes the videos seem personal.
- One-time purchase price, no subscription fees.
Cons:
- While the course offers more advanced tutorials in the later lessons, advanced guitarists will find the first couple of DVDs too easy.
- More expensive than online courses, but you get what you pay for, since this is the best blues guitar course we’ve come across to date.
Support Services of Blues Guitar Spotlight
Online support, where you can post questions and discuss your progress on the Student Support Discussion Board. There is also a community website where students post clips and videos of themselves playing and get feedback. You can ask for support via Email as well.
Setup/Compatibility
The Learn and Master Blues Guitar DVDs are not region encoded, so they will play on any standalone DVD player or your DVD drive equipped PC..
Warranty
60 day money back guarantee, which is great since the course is a bit pricey, but if you are not satisfied with it, you simply return it and get a full refund.
Price
The price may seem expensive, but considering the amount of material you get, it’s worth it. The package comes out to $12/disc, which is more than fair.
Conclusion
If you like listening to blues, already have some skills at playing the guitar, and want to play like BB King, you’ll be very satisfied with the Blues Guitar – Learn and Master Spotlight Series from Legacy Learning Systems. It’s not a cheap guitar course, but you get exceptional quality for the price. Steve Krenz’s step-by-step teaching style is suitable for beginner-intermediate players, advanced guitarists will probably find it a bit slow and too detailed.
The Learn and Master Blues Guitar Spotlight course is great for beginner-intermediate guitarists, who are looking for step-by-step learning material to teach themselves the blues.
