Has anyone tried Kelly Valleau's lessons?

[sloar]

I really like his fingerstyle arrangements, you can hear the lyrics in his playing. I'm wanting to try but don't want to pay if his teaching isn't very good. So before I log into my PayPal has anyone tried any of his lessons, and if so what did you think? Thanks

[Ed66]

Over the past couple of years I purchased a number of his songs because he does fantastic renditions of both older and (mostly) current songs. About a month ago, after he made a few tweaks to his site, I just signed up for a year of full access. The videos are good, assuming you have a relatively basic knowledge of the fret board. There are usually 3 or 4 videos per song with the 1st being a full play through, the 2nd being a detailed work through of the song, chords/fingerings, and the 3rd and 4th (if applicable) being more advanced components of the song as he has played it - usually rhythms/tapping/etc. For me, being self taught with little music theory, I find it works pretty well. The songs tend to be fairly complex (at least the ones I've selected so far have been) and he does put up 2 to 4 songs each month so the library is growing. I believe if you've paid for full access (around $100.00 for a year) you get to purchase individual tabs for 1/2 price (around 5.00/apiece). If you're good enough, you can probable just learn from the tab inset of the play through on each piece - but I'm nowhere near that level. I'm just trying to tie up his version of Pink's "Just give me a reason" and that's taken me over a month.

[Crashcup]

Kelly Valleau at "String Training" is a fingerstyle artist with few equals. He provides the absolute BEST solo fingerstyle arrangements on the internet (I've looked, and looked, and looked...). As "ED66" mentioned, if you subscribe, you can access his easy to follow, but to-the-point lessons. He also offers 1/2 off Music Notes transcriptions if you subscribe (beware of those who offer transcriptions for free. The copyright lawyers lurk in the shadows and have repeatedly shut such entrepreneurs/artists down--See Gareth Evans at Goliath Guitars, as an example) .

BUT--Mr. Valleau's lessons are NOT for the faint of heart, novice guitar players and most certainly NOT for those looking to learn a quick tune. Most of Kelly Valleau's pieces on String Training are dense with complexity. I don't want to mislead, they are accessible, but if you want to replicate the nuance of the artist, and if you're not at least an intermediate-advanced fingerstyle player, you'll be spending a lot of time learning each piece. I've been playing fingerstyle guitar exclusively for over 12 years and I spend over a month learning some of his pieces and many more really getting them under my fingers to a middling degree of satisfaction.

In the end, you will have learned the song exactly as he transcribed it. At first it's rewarding--and frustrating--but in the end, you will have a song memorized. I guess there's room for personalizing the pieces, but by the time I reached that point, I was pretty much tired of the song and anxious to move on.

I eventually lost interest and started developing my ability to compose my own transcriptions of songs. I'll NEVER be as good as Kelly is on String Training, but in the end, it's much more rewarding and less confining. I wish Kelly would offer a course or a video about how he approaches this. For years I've skirted music theory because in fingerstyle I just played the notes on the page--What you see is what you play. When I began learning music theory and applying it in context, the whole guitar opened up to me and I can't get enough. There's nothing that compares the the process of using the filter of music theory to replicate tunes you like on your own.

For those who like to build a library of memorized, beautifully transcribed solo renditions of popular songs, there is none better than Kelly Valleau- yet..