When I started trying to learn guitar, I couldn't find a teacher who taught me what I wanted to know. I simply wanted to know how to play songs on the guitar. Instead, what I got was how to play "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" on the highest pitched string. Boring. I lost interest in lessons, and started hanging out with kids from school, who knew more than me.
I also got a hold of some of my mom's cheat books, looked at the diagrams and got to know the chords by name and where to put my fingers on the strings. After a while, I learned how to play some John Denver, Helen Reddy, The Beatles, and Neil Diamond. Cool, huh?
But then, KISS came out. My dad got a copy of Dressed To Kill on 8-track cassette in 1975. He then got me Alive! shortly after that on LP. We were in Wildwood, New Jersey, when KISS recorded ALIVE at the Convention Center, but we didn't know they were there.
They didn't sound like John Denver, that's for sure. Like any other kid, I was learning how to skateboard and listen to new music that made my parents sick. In this case, my dad started it. And I was obsessed with KISS. (still am). And I couldn't play and get the same sounds as they did.
It took me years of looking for the right teacher to get me to understand what Rock Music was. Living in rural New Jersey, with no music instructor close by, I had to look at books. And that's how I found Doug Marks. Doug used to play in a band called "Hawk". He had a small ad in GUITAR magazine that said if I sent him $60 bucks, I could get more info from him than any other teacher. Everything was on cassette and in a tablature book. I clunked down my money. Doug was right. He taught more material and made it more fun than any in person teacher I ever had.
I had a deeper understanding of music.
That's why Doug's Metal Method is on my mentor's list. Doug taught me what I wanted to know from the very start: how to play songs. Perhaps you can, too.
If you want to improve, check out Metal Method and see for yourself.
But, if you find reading the tablature, and the guitar instructors facing opposite you, then check out my method.
Bass Ackwards.