Dear Future Lead Guitarist,

What you are about to read has been edited from a long phone conversation between Mike Herberts and Jerry Lamberth. We thought it was better for you to have a fly-on-the-wall glimpse at our thinking behind this course.


Every student who turns up with an electric guitar, which is about 50 percent of them,  all want to learn at some point how to solo.

Now if you are anywhere near the same age as we are (which is VERY old indeed) then you've grown up with Clapton and Hendrix and Jimmy Page and all these guys, and guitarists of every age still want to be able to do that, and sound like that. and what's stopped people from finding it easy in the past?

"In our experience, solo guitar never seems to get taught in a musical kind of way. It tends to get taught in a theoretical, mathematical kind of way"

What I mean is, you get shown a picture of a guitar fretboard with gazillions of dots on it, usually in different colours, and an explanation that there are 5 different 'positions' for playing the scales.

At first that kinda sinks in a bit but it isn't very long before it all starts to get very confusing.

Jerry says "So I've seen guys come to me and they say, 'I know all my patterns,' and they've been endlessly prepped in the five patterns. And when I say that's fantastic, play me solo, they can't use the patterns to play a solo.

So there's no transition between the theory of where the notes live on the fretboard, and actually being able to play music. So I've always tried to get people playing a musical solo really quickly, with the minimum of theoretical information that they need to be able to do that"

You WILL eventually want to start feeling your way around all the patterns but when you start out that is absolutely the wrong way of going about things.

So what we do is we start with the most common of the five positions, and immediately we get soloing out of that position. And we really explore that position inside out. We look at all the possibilities of what you can do with it. We look at all the styles of music you can use, you can solo over, from blues to country to rock and all that kind of stuff. And only then, when they've really mastered that position, do we kind of push it into different places on the fretboard.

The amazing thing is, even just with that one pattern, if I was to go to an accomplished blues guitarist, say, let's take Clapton for example. If I went to Eric Clapton and said, "Can you play me please a really nice moving, heartfelt blues solo, and only use that one position?" Would he be able to do that?

Absolutely he would. Not only would he be able to do that but he'd be able to probably jam in it for probably five minutes without ever repeating himself or starting to sound boring because there's so much you can do just in that one pattern.

In fact,  I would say that if you said to him, "Could you play me something really beautiful and heartfelt on just TWO STRING out of that pattern?" He would be able to do it. There's so much material in there.

This is part of the reason why people get confused. No one's really explained to them that you don't need to learn all of those patterns initially.

It would be absolutely great to be able to play every single note within that scale, and all the slides and the bends, and the nuances and the hammers on, and all of that, but if you can learn how to that with just a single pattern, and then apply that phase of learning, if you like, later on to then the next one in the series.

So everything you learn in that one pattern, you'll be able to apply to other patterns. But by doing things in this simple way, you have already made the breakthrough. The important breakthrough is to think, "How can I just play something that sounds musical when I've got nothing written in front of me?"

That's the thing that when we've taught people, that can be the hardest thing for them to get over. You can't say to them, "OK, just play something now in that pattern." Because they look at you blankly and go, "What?" At first, they'll just play the scale through.

So the big breakthrough is to get
past just 'playing the scale'

Jerry says..."So the big breakthrough is to get past just playing the scale, and to say, "OK, let's stick with the scale. I just want you to play four notes out of that scale over this backing track, and they begin to build up from that to the idea that you can turn that into a guitar solo."

People get disheartened early on for many reasons. Because you will have bought books, or ebooks, or you'll have seen chord charts or fretboard charts which show you lots of coloured blobs...and not much else

And how on earth can you relate music to it, when you don't understand how it works, how can you relate those blobs on that fretboard to actual music? and that's why we say it is usually taught not in a musical sense. It's taught in a technical, mathematical, almost algebraic, sense.

 We will never make the assumption that if you just know where the patterns are that you can turn that into an Eric Clapton type solo automatically. Because of course, you can't. And that's why we see get caught in practicing the five patterns over and over again.

A little side note from Mike about Skill Levels and who this set is aimed at When Jerry first  shot the videos for this set he had only covered the first pattern that is used in the pentatonic scale that most people use. After the feedback we had from the beta testers, he went on to develop this course to include ALL the 5 patterns that we use on guitar. If you are wondering whether this course will show you everything you need to know.....the answer is YES absolutely . We've kept things simple to start with, for as long as possible, to get you playing your own sweet solo licks BUT....if you want to go on and develop your skills, there is more than enough information here to get you to the top of the tree is you wish. So hopefully we've achieved what we set out to do which is to produce a course that will... Finally show you how to get over that first hurdle and give you a course that will absolutely get you able to jam and play along to your favourites. Give you the knowledge you need to get from being an intermediate player by giving you lots of ideas about how to create more pleasing licks. Extend your knowledge to make your guitar playing a lot more fun. The ability to 'Jam' along with other musicians or even just to your favourite pieces of music....is one of the most exciting things about playing guitar. Jerry asked me to interject here because he was worried that some people might be put off, thinking that the material would be too difficult (it's not...I promise) and he didn't want experienced guitarists to think that it wouldn't be advanced enough in the later stages (It IS ...I promise) I just wanted to reassure you that, even if you've tried other courses.....this is the one that'll give you the breakthrough you've been looking. Mike Herberts

But what we really want to do is play music

There's nothing wrong with the five patterns. Don't get me wrong at all. But what we really want to do is play music. And I would much rather hear people play music in one pattern than show me the scales of all five patterns.

We often see a derogatory term aimed at guitarists where they are said to be 'playing in the box'. This means that they are playing just a single pattern in their solo.

We don't see this as a negative thing at all. Playing 'in the box' means playing in one of the patterns, and it's usually the pattern that we're talking about, the one we're calling pattern number one. That would be, because it actually makes the shape of a box on your fretboard, where your fingers can reach in that pattern. So we call it playing in the box, and it just means playing out of that one pattern. But there are tons of fantastic solos using just that pattern.

There are tons of Clapton solos, for example, and even Jimmy Hendrix, who's thought of as being "outside the box," and being incredibly creative with a guitar, but if we were to look very closely at what he's doing, would we recognize that he's playing scales, basically? He's playing within a single pattern.

These guys, know the whole fretboard, so they do range beyond it, but you can recognize the patterns that they're playing out of, and we can find lots of excerpts of Hendrix playing out of the pattern that we're talking about.

In fact, a great example is Jimmy Page and the first bit of the solo to "Stairway to Heaven," which for the first 10 or 15 seconds of that solo is all out of the first pattern that we're talking about.

So you'll be pleased to know that the approach that we've taken here is to show really what's possible with that single position, that position number one.

So this series, then, of "Learn Solo Guitar" covers all styles of music and in all keys.

You'll learn the skills and the tools that you need to be able to play in any key, in any style of music. So I don't necessarily give an example of a solo of a disco track say, but the tools will be there for you to go away and transfer over a disco track.

Let's say folk rock, for example, just a standard piece. Again, we'll stick with the key of A because it's a nice easy one. And most people know that A centers around the fifth fret because that note happens to be A. If I was playing a piece of folk rock and I wanted to put a nice solo in there, initially, I would just stick with A major, the major shape, the major scale.

You probably have some fundamental questions in your mind right now. The first question is probably,

How long will it take me to start producing my own original riffs using this Video/Audio course?

The answer is 'not very long at all'. Once you've learned the scale pattern, which is the very first thing that gets taught, you can start creating licks straight away. And we show in the video how you can do that; you can take a little bit of the scale pattern. So really, as long as your fingers can play the scale, you can be creating your own licks immediately.

Later on in the course we'll show you how to use embellishments, shall we say, or dynamics, where we talk about slides and bends, hammer-ons and pull-offs. So once you've picked a riff and you're working with a riff, you then decide how you're going to put that together to get all those extra little sounds that people like.

But remember you'll be playing licks immediately without any of those techniques because of the simple way we've laid these lessons out. Whilst it is definitely NOT simple to get to be the level of Jimmy Page playing the "Stairway to Heaven" solo, you'll very quickly be able to put together a solo that sounds pretty good, that you've made up yourself. As soon as you can play the scale pattern, you can play your first solo.

Can anyone do this?

Anyone can do this whose hands
can play the scale pattern.

Anyone can do this whose hands can play the scale pattern. So if you're able to play the scale and hold the guitar and have it in tune, and understand what we're showing you, you'll be playing great original solo riffs within hours.

Of course, that's one of the great things about being a guitar teacher . . .  seeing people going from that blank look they give you when they first have to improvise, and they've got no idea what to do, to a couple of weeks later when they're playing their first guitar solo.

It's great to see that happen, because it's one of those things that everybody wants to be able to do, talking about what we talked about in the beginning. Everybody who picks up a guitar at some point wants to be able to do what it seems like Clapton, and Hendrix, and Jimmy Page, and these guys are doing, don't they? 

As well as the tuition videos and DVD's we also include all the backing/jam tracks you'll need. The idea is that we give you the jam tracks you'll need to complete the course plus we include tracks in different keys and different genres.

There are about four or five jam tracks that are part of the course. In other words, we actually learn solos using those jam tracks in the video course. Then I've included in the package a total of 20 different jam tracks in many different styles and different keys so that you can try all these ideas you've been learning from the course.

A little side note from Mike about Skill Levels and who this set is aimed at When Jerry first  shot the videos for this set he had only covered the first pattern that is used in the pentatonic scale that most people use. After the feedback we had from the beta testers, he went on to develop this course to include ALL the 5 patterns that we use on guitar. If you are wondering whether this course will show you everything you need to know.....the answer is YES absolutely . We've kept things simple to start with, for as long as possible, to get you playing your own sweet solo licks BUT....if you want to go on and develop your skills, there is more than enough information here to get you to the top of the tree is you wish. So hopefully we've achieved what we set out to do which is to produce a course that will... Finally show you how to get over that first hurdle and give you a course that will absolutely get you able to jam and play along to your favourites. Give you the knowledge you need to get from being an intermediate player by giving you lots of ideas about how to create more pleasing licks. Extend your knowledge to make your guitar playing a lot more fun. The ability to 'Jam' along with other musicians or even just to your favourite pieces of music....is one of the most exciting things about playing guitar. Jerry asked me to interject here because he was worried that some people might be put off, thinking that the material would be too difficult (it's not...I promise) and he didn't want experienced guitarists to think that it wouldn't be advanced enough in the later stages (It IS ...I promise) I just wanted to reassure you that, even if you've tried other courses.....this is the one that'll give you the breakthrough you've been looking. Mike Herberts

. . . is that you can apply all this to whatever style of music is your particular favourite

The beauty of learning all these concepts this way (watch and learn) is that you can apply all this to whatever style of music is your particular favourite. So all these lessons and tolls work for, blues, rock, heavy metal, folk, folk rock, ballads....the licks and the same ideas all work.

So, if you've been struggling to make sense of all this stuff that everyone else seems to take for granted .....we have the answer for you.

If you are the type of person who wants to go on eventually and make a much deeper study of these concepts you will have an enormouse advantage by taking this simplified approach at the out set.

You may have seen products that will teach you to memorise all the notes on your fretboard and we want to reassure you that you don't need to be able to do that in order to play great original solo riffs on your guitar.

Of course, if you ever want to play like Eric Clapton, then that would be the next stage. So, there's nothing wrong with that stuff at all. It's just what wrong is the idea that you've got to know that before you can do anything.

So what we've done here is, we've come at it from the complete opposite angle, which is what I've always maintained, and always done in the past. Namely 'Let's get some music played, and then if you like it, and if you want to go beyond your understanding, there's absolutely nothing at all to stop you picking up one of these other courses where they'll teach you every single note on the guitar.

You can memorize every note, and get really involved in the mechanics of keys, and how they are affected with the patterns, and how you change keys later on if you want to

Also you must understand that there's no cheating going on here. We're not doing pretend guitar solos.

Also you must understand that there's no cheating going on here. We're not doing pretend guitar solos. This is absolutely real stuff. It gets you playing quickly, and absolutely if you get into it, then of course go beyond and go into the more detailed stuff that is available in books and courses elsewhere.

SPECIAL NOTE  IF YOU WANT TO PLAY BLUES Mike says . . . And there's an amazing thing that you do that I highlighted on the video where you go from the major key - still playing blues, still playing in a set key - and you move from a major scale into a minor scale. And the effect is the hairs-on-the-back-of-the-neck effect that's impossible to describe, but everybody knows what it is when it happens. And guitarists will all stand together and listen, and just at that point, they all look at each other and it's like, "Wow." Jerry says . . . That's right. I was playing in A, but you can do it in any key of course and the video would show you how. The first thing to say is that this only works for the blues. That's the only style of music that you can mix major and minor together in, but in the blues it sounds fantastic. You start off playing in a major scale. which doesn't sound  particularly 'bluesy' in that sense. So you play in the major for a while setting up a sense of false security in the listener. We find the correct position to do this using the "three fret rule." If you're playing a minor pentatonic and you move the patterns three frets down the fretboard - in other words, to your left, if you're a right-handed guitarist - you end up in the major pentatonic in the same key. There are lots of ways to do what I'm describing here (and what is shown in the video above) but one way that works really effectively is to play a major for the first eight bars of a 12-bar blues. And then, on the ninth bar, shift to the minor scale, which means going up the neck three frets to your right, if you're a right-handed guitarist. The great thing about it is that sometimes it's really effective to play exactly the same riff in major, shift it up three frets and play it in minor, and it just sounds amazing. People know that something really interesting has happened but they can't put their finger on what. This is often one of the things that causes confusion among beginners. And we think that Jerry's explanation highlights that in a far better way than we've ever seen explained. Most people know that you could move around the fretboard and you would be changing key by doing that, keeping the same shape. But when we reveal the simplicity of it it will often be the first time you've ever thought  "Ah! Now I get it." It will be one of those great  light bulb moments that us guitarists get.

This set consists of four DVDs, which are all of the different lessons starting from  learning your very first position on the neck and playing your first real solo riff.

 So you can watch these on your TV, in the lounge, in the front room, in the parlor, if you like. You may have to kick out all of the family before you do that. Generally, because this will be played on an electric guitar, which either means an amp or something that you could listen to through headphones.

We should probably make the point that there's nothing here that doesn't work on acoustic guitar. You can play lead solo riffs on acaoustic just the same so you can use all of this stuff on acoustic guitar.

We should probably make the point that there's nothing here that doesn't work on acoustic guitar

So if you like to play acoustic blues for example there's nothing to stop you playing all that stylish fingerpicking, and then just throwing in a few lead breaks here and there. That's what a lot of the old blues guitarists used to do. I'm talking about way back, with people like Robert Johnson, and people around that era. They would often build up lead breaks using just the techniques that we've been teaching here.

So, we've got four DVDs, which are all the video lessons. They look great on your TV, because they're nice big screen stuff. The set also will include two CDs, which replicates all of the DVDs, all the videos on the DVDs, but for use on the computer.

We've also included all the tabs so everything that is meant as a solo in the course is tabbed out. We let you have prinatble versions plus Power Tab files for them,so you can play along them as well.

Also you'll be getting 2 cd's with the backing and jam tracks on.

So, that's a very comprehensive package there. I think it is fair to say, no matter how long you've been trying to master this aspect of your guitar playing, this package is going to be the turning point for you.

This is definitely your best entry into playing solo guitar.

This is definitely your best entry into playing solo guitar. We don't believe that there is anybody who isn't going to be able to play some nice stuff from this set....even if this has been like a black art to you in the past.