wpb reviews Blues You Can Use Second Edition
May 29, 2015 17:09:44 GMT -6
Phil and jack1982 like this
Post by wannaplayblues on May 29, 2015 17:09:44 GMT -6
As I stated I would, I got a copy of "Blues You Can Use Second Edition" and it arrived today.
I thought I'd share my initial thoughts:
The Good
The videos are brilliant! I have yet to watch them all, but it's great to see JohnG playing the guitar and taking you through the difficulties of the song as well as the scales and chords. He's really laid-back in his teaching and I feel I could listen and learn a lot just from the videos. John certainly throws in lots of little tips. I wish I'd had these videos when I started BYCU, they are a highly welcomed addition. Each video clip is about 50-90MB to download in MP4 format (or you can simply stream it).
And it's nice to put a face and voice to the person who has taught me so much! (Hi John, nice to finally "meet" you - so to speak
)
The book is glue-bound like the rest of the BYCU series of books. Personally I miss the stapled version as it sits open better, but that's just me. I noticed that the spine of the book is a different style to the rest of the spines in the printed series. No idea why it was done like this, but makes it stands out from the others and doesn't look like part of the series. Anyhow, it's pretty much the same internally as my 1st Edition(?). I haven't delved deep enough to identify the changes. If you have some in mind I can check them for you.
The Bad
The one bad point I have about the second edition is that the media icons don't specify track numbers or similar, it's therefore down to you to figure it out (the attached sample is from Hal Leonard's website but you can see the icons at the top):
Why do I point this out? Simply because the real issue is Hal Leonard's very poor cloud implementation. Have a look at this attachment made of two seperate views:
The first view is the default display. Just look at the file names on the left. It seems there is no sense to them or their order. Some have John's name associated with them, some don't. Some say a lesson number, some don't.
The second view is reached by clicking on the name of the book "Blues You Can Use, 2nd Ed" in the first view. Though it looks like a better view, it does not indicate if pressing "Play" starts a video or an mp3. Worst of all, the "Download All" button allows you to download a zip - but it only contained the mp3 files and not the mp4 videos
I am currently downloading the videos one-by-one (painstakingly) from the first view, but even this produces some interesting results... just look at the default filenames for each clip I have downloaded so far:
It makes it near impossible to find what you want. I'll probably rename them all, someting like "Ganapes-LessonXX-Scales.mp4" because at least then they'll be ordered by lesson number making it straight forward.
Verdict
Essentially I am very pleased to own the second edition!
I think the video media adds a great dimension and another "closer" feeling of being taught by John himself (especially as he participates in the forums too!) and his style is just so calm and laid back!
I understand that Hal Leonard are trying to protect their copyright and media distribution based upon actual new-copy sales, but the implementation is far from perfect at the moment. If this were fixed the overall product would be better.
I thought I'd share my initial thoughts:
The Good
The videos are brilliant! I have yet to watch them all, but it's great to see JohnG playing the guitar and taking you through the difficulties of the song as well as the scales and chords. He's really laid-back in his teaching and I feel I could listen and learn a lot just from the videos. John certainly throws in lots of little tips. I wish I'd had these videos when I started BYCU, they are a highly welcomed addition. Each video clip is about 50-90MB to download in MP4 format (or you can simply stream it).
And it's nice to put a face and voice to the person who has taught me so much! (Hi John, nice to finally "meet" you - so to speak
)The book is glue-bound like the rest of the BYCU series of books. Personally I miss the stapled version as it sits open better, but that's just me. I noticed that the spine of the book is a different style to the rest of the spines in the printed series. No idea why it was done like this, but makes it stands out from the others and doesn't look like part of the series. Anyhow, it's pretty much the same internally as my 1st Edition(?). I haven't delved deep enough to identify the changes. If you have some in mind I can check them for you.
The Bad
The one bad point I have about the second edition is that the media icons don't specify track numbers or similar, it's therefore down to you to figure it out (the attached sample is from Hal Leonard's website but you can see the icons at the top):
Why do I point this out? Simply because the real issue is Hal Leonard's very poor cloud implementation. Have a look at this attachment made of two seperate views:
The first view is the default display. Just look at the file names on the left. It seems there is no sense to them or their order. Some have John's name associated with them, some don't. Some say a lesson number, some don't.
The second view is reached by clicking on the name of the book "Blues You Can Use, 2nd Ed" in the first view. Though it looks like a better view, it does not indicate if pressing "Play" starts a video or an mp3. Worst of all, the "Download All" button allows you to download a zip - but it only contained the mp3 files and not the mp4 videos
I am currently downloading the videos one-by-one (painstakingly) from the first view, but even this produces some interesting results... just look at the default filenames for each clip I have downloaded so far:
It makes it near impossible to find what you want. I'll probably rename them all, someting like "Ganapes-LessonXX-Scales.mp4" because at least then they'll be ordered by lesson number making it straight forward.
Verdict
Essentially I am very pleased to own the second edition!
I think the video media adds a great dimension and another "closer" feeling of being taught by John himself (especially as he participates in the forums too!) and his style is just so calm and laid back!
I understand that Hal Leonard are trying to protect their copyright and media distribution based upon actual new-copy sales, but the implementation is far from perfect at the moment. If this were fixed the overall product would be better.
