MJS Music Publications Classic Van Halen Phrase by Phrase Guitar Method (DVD)

All 10 Songs/Lessons take you by the hand and show you each and every chord and solo. Exact placement and technique, amp and effects settings. After explaining each phrase, you get to play it at half speed, then work your way up to full speed. At full speed, if you close your eyes, you would swear you are listening to Eddie playing without the band. If you sync up the full speed sections with a CD they are dead on! Also, this isn't just someone showing off, this is an amazing teacher, who obviously wants you the student to get your moneys worth! I would pay full price for just 1 song and feel like I'm getting away with murder to have all 10 for this price. I'm blown away by the quality, length (5 hour DVD), lessons (Early DLR-era VH), and low price. On my way back to Guitar Center to pick up Phrase By Phrase Metallica and ACDC.

This dvd is fantastic with great tab and phrases that lets you learn small amounts of the songs at your own rate. The guitar sounds great however the teacher plays the licks and riffs terribly. I would recommend listening to the real van halen tracks and play to them rather then play with the teacher. Also his dive bombs and whammys don't cut it. One of EVH's signatures to his playing is his dive bombs and use of the floyd rose. I recommend this as something to get the tab down at a slow pace but I believe that no teacher can teach van halen's style, its something you have to learn on your own with feel and spontaneity.

Well....great idea and the video with tab is laid out very well. The problem: The guitar player is like many of the Van Halen clones that came out in the late 70's and early 80's that had the flash but have no feel. His vibrato is down right terrible and he misses the feel that Eddie put into his solos and songs. Without a proper tutorial on this vibrato, I feel it is going to instruct a lot of people on how to develop bad habits. He rushes the licks in an effort to get through the phrases instead of playing it with feel. When I say rush, i mean, the bends are abbreviated. When he completes attempts vibrato....he doesn't bring it back to the key when completing the vibrato...intonation gone bad. Sounds like a hyper active mosquito. When you buy a VH instructional video that boasts step by step instruction...you expect a player that delivers. Guitar Center should take this off their shelves....don't mean to cut on the guitar player but it will lead aspiring guitar players down the wrong path. He is a good enough player to have the insight that he just doen't have it...so he either did it for the money or he just doesn't care.

The Phrase by Phrase videos are awesome. They have become my must have guitar instruction DVD's. They break everything down so you have time to learn and get your speed up before moving on to the next phrase. He also gives you the settings for the effects and the effects to use to get the sound. I love it! The other DVD's always leave something out, so I would never quite feel I had all the pieces I needed. These DVD's rock!

I've struggled with playing Eddie Van Halen on guitar for 20 years! This DVD will teach anyone how to play like Eddie! The author, Mark Sternal, plays and sounds just like Eddie. He teaches you on the new EVH Wolfgang, and breaks down each and every rhythm, fill and solo into small, bite size phrases that anyone can sink their teeth into. There isn't a better EVH method out there!

The player in this video is very sloppy. He phrases a lot of passages wrong, and doesn't even include the Phase 90 in the solo passages, which is a huge part of the early VH sound. This company should have gotten Curt Mitchell to demonstrate the songs. I do not recommend this video to anyone wanting to learn classic VH. As a matter of fact, there this player makes a complete mess out of the phrases he's supposed to demonstrate. Do Not Buy!