Dynamic Rhythm Guitar Testimonials

Hi Jonathan, you have put a lot of work and time into this course (Dynamic Rhythm Guitar), and there is a lot of great theory in there with your style of playing. I must confess, I got it a long while back, and because of delays / work, I haven't been able to go fully through it for a review for you. I have been backlogged with a few things; hopefully things change over this year. But your theory got me writing from the basics and I kindly thank you for this.

The presentation helped me understand playing styles better.

I'm all thumbs, but getting better.

Nice course. Thanks.

I really need help with my rhythm, and this is very helpful. As much as I hate practicing rhythm. I cant seem to count in the proper way. But I really enjoy going over the 3rds as well as chord modifications. I would highly recommend the entire course to any one that is serious about learning to play guitar. That is my absolute feeling about this. Thank you for being such a great instructor.

James.

I have completed several courses with Play Guitar and this would be the best. It touches on all aspects of playing; my understanding has definitely improved. Now to put it all into practice! Many Thanks.

As a rhythm guitarist, I have primarily strummed chords and played riffs. To say this course has 'broadened my horizons' as a rhythm player would be an understatement.

The strength of the course is providing the general framework upon which to expand my repertoire of rhythm playing, without a dizzying array of specific ways to play rhythm guitar.

Room is left for creativity. Pace is perfect! By far, the best online course I have taken with emphasis on rhythm playing!!

Cheers!!

Dave

I am studying Dynamic Rhythm Guitar, Tasty Riffs and Solos and Following the Chords. All excellent courses. My key learning has been the major and relative minor relationship. Suddenly the modes, the caged system , the scales all fit together logically. Wow! I’m in wonderful new territory with my playing.

Thanks for the excellent teaching!

Hi Jonathan,

I've had the Dynamic Rhythm course for a few weeks now and am pleased to be able to say how enlightening it is!

I've been (playing) the guitar for many years and although I had a pretty good chord base and I had the pentatonic scale down, I've never been able to put it all together or understand why things work or don't work. I've never felt like I've really been able to actually play / create music. I was losing my love doing the same ten songs over and over... till now!!

Now I'm doing cool chord progressions even changing key (ha , I didn't know keys were so important) der!!

I'm doing things I'd only seen others do and wondered how! I'm very grateful to you for opening a gate to the path of guitar heaven! The buzz from learning and actually playing (not copying) is immense.

Thank you so very much indeed, Wayne

The strumming made a big difference. I was just doing the up down up down strumming. Strumming patterns made a big difference.

Regarding the theory. I started out knowing only about 12 chords. I never knew what made a chord or why some chords had sharps and some had flats. Just understanding the making of chords, etc., helped enormously. I never really knew that music was actually a science. It all fits. It all makes sense. I love knowing about it!

I think you are an excellent teacher. For the first time in my life I understand theory--the hows and whys. I had guitar teachers before, but all they told me what where to put my fingers on the frets. That's it. I don't know how you could improve. To me... you're already there!

I am about halfway through the Dynamic Rhythm Guitar course. I am really appreciating the mix of theory at the "white board" and the playing demonstrations of chord variations. We all know the chord shapes by rote memory, but it really helps to understand how these are derived theoretically so that you can easily shape the chord when you encounter it in the sheet music. Whether it is a suspended chord, some version of 7th or 9th you can build it in your mind and translate it to the fret board. I am really enjoying your video courses. Keep up the great work!

Your presentation of Basic Guitar Theory is superb. I have been studying Theory for some time but the way you methodically moved from step to step filled in a lot of gaps for me. I hope to see you teaching some more advanced theory in the future. I had a little problem getting logged onto this course but you support people fixed it pretty fast. It was well worth the anticipation and wait. Thanks

Hi Jonathan,

I'm two hours in and have already updated my strumming patterns to include up and down half strums (chugs).

Just want to say that you are a very good communicator. I totally understand what you're saying, and I like how you follow a thought all the way to its end. And I have a feeling that these building blocks you're teaching me are going to tie into bigger and better things in the future. High quality material and Web site.

I’m enjoying your new course (Dynamic Rhythm Guitar) and it’s really helping put all the pieces together, even on the first time through. Between you and Colin, I’ve made more progress than I ever thought possible in large part due to your patient/persistent style of teaching.

Practicing structured strumming and picking. Just at beginning of course. Fiddling with so many different courses.

Playing with strumming dynamics and hybrid picking. Love both courses so far. I keep practicing with both trying to get smooth enough with exercises to move forward with other courses. Also soloing a bit with songs on rock jams.

I'm having fun.

The courses are well organized and easy for me to follow along. I get true progress and results which helps me keep motivated and looking forward to the next session.

I have purchased most all of them and get great results from each of them.

Thank you

The Dynamic Rhythm Guitar course is what I am working on. I am working on the flat picking session and have found it very interesting. It also pointed out that I needed to sharpen my chords up because you can't hide mistakes when each note is ringing out. Overall great work.

Hi Jonathan!

Thanks for responding so quickly and for taking care of the issue! I can confirm the video has returned on my end and I greatly appreciate your promptness!

I really enjoy your emails and have gotten a lot out of your courses - so I have to admit I’m just a little starstruck to have you responding directly!

I can’t say there’s been one “big takeaway” from this course because there’s so much I’ve taken from it. I’ve only been playing guitar for 3 years - I played tuba throughout high school though, so when I picked up the guitar I knew I wanted to be able to do more than just playback things I was hearing or reading off of a page (which is what high school tuba is) and really be able to play.

With that in mind I was looking for a course that could help me learn how to make music with the guitar, not just give me things to play. I saw the video of you playing in the course preview and immediately knew - I want to be able to play like that!

The course has 100% lived up to what I hoped. As a true beginner when I first bought the course, having exposure to different techniques (flat picking, hybrid picking, dynamic strumming) along with information about scales, chords, progressions etc was everything I wanted. It took me a long time to work through the “first half” of the course, but it set me up so well to understand different things I could do with the guitar even if technically I couldn’t quite do all of it yet.

As I revisit the course now, my goal is to really take everything in and incorporate it into my playing. I also plan to tackle advanced strumming, riffs/fills, and theory of thirds this time which I wasn’t quite ready for last time.

Sorry for the long email, but this course has been EXCELLENT and I know I haven’t even gotten out of it half of what I will. Thank you for your work on this - it’s really helping me get what I want out of guitar!

Sincerely,

Andrew

I have spent a small fortune on guitar lesson on the internet. Downloads, DVD's, PDF course books - you name it and I've acquired it. All a waste of time - thin on content, poor delivery and inferior documentation.

Not now since I found JB's web site and lessons. Have downloaded three courses to date and they stand head and shoulders over the rest.

Jonathan has clearly put a lot of time in pre-planning the lessons, course books and video presentation - and it shows.

Hi Jonathan

Just a note to say how much I have and am still enjoying this DRG course.

There's a lot in it, and I go back to previous lessons to reinforce my understanding. I find it useful to copy a couple of lessons to my Kindle fire which I take to work and watch in my car when I have some free time and practice when I get home.

I very much like your easy going style of teaching and while I'm too old to ever be a rock god I feel my playing has improved quite a bit, and knowing why and how things work has made it more fun for me. Still trying to get that bagpipes-style drone though 🙂

All the best

Nev

Hi Jonathan, I am enjoying your course. I am 71 years young, so am going slow, but I am playing much better. I could play open chords and some bar chords but I am very happy with how it's going. Today I am playing with a neighbour who has played in bands. He can play, but can't tell you what he is doing, so as I progress along your course I will let you know how much better I get. Love music and look forward to the day I get to the end of your course.

Best wishes,

Ron

I have been playing guitar on and off for about 50 years and never really got into the theory of the finger board. I am finding the first part of your theory really good and beginning to open my mind to what its all about. Looking forward to (slowly) getting into it.

I have knocked around with a bunch of players (some good) and find I have been a watch and do-it player instead of playing the I IV V chord sets. Hopefully that may change and I have just written a song which I think could be quite reasonable (for a seventy year old!!).

These are really good lessons.

Very well explained

100% improvement. I'm more cognizant of my dynamics when playing - less in terms of volume, which I'd like to improve on, but more on where my pick hits the strings and different ways to incorporate hybrid picking in my strumming.

Hi Jonathan,

I wanted to take a few minutes to provide some feedback on your latest course, Dynamic Rhythm Guitar.

This is one of the most useful courses I’ve gone through. Not only do you cover a ton of content, it is completely usable and relevant to getting someone to actually sound great on guitar. And you deliver on this by teaching solid technique, providing relevant insight into the theory behind it, and providing ideas that can be expanded on.

A truly complete and unique package in the sense that it’s not about copying someone’s playing or about memorizing specific licks.

This course truly does empower the player with solid insight into how to enhance what would otherwise be basic guitar playing, which makes playing the guitar that much more enjoyable.

While I honestly find this course to be entirely well done, here are some of the highlights that I found worth mentioning:

• Great pace and mix of technique and theory to support it, and considering the breath of this course, there is a very logical relationship between various topics, rendering a completely usable building-block-based flow.
• There is an emphasis on self-proficiency with technique/concepts/theory versus memorizing licks or strumming patterns, which I found very empowering
• Extremely useful drum track which really helps to lock into the rhythm when applying the examples and concepts
• You have some unique and interesting approaches to cover the theory that would make it easy for a beginner to grasp while bringing additional comprehension for more experienced players that might have covered some of these topics before, making it accessible and interesting to a wide range of players, and none of it is “boring”
• Excellent video/sound quality and use of embedded/customized tab is very efficient

All around this is truly a well thought out and put together course and with the amount of coverage, it’s an awesome value. The only thing one needs to bring to this one is his/her guitar and the passion to play guitar and I can’t see anyone not making extremely good use of this course. My only concern now is that too many people will sound great on guitar after going through this course and those who already do might not stand out as much 😉

I think your material is excellent. The dynamic rhythm course was great. Flexible material of how to play the instrument not how to play someone else. Broke things down nicely into the components that come together to make rhythm guitar.

Your course Dynamic Rhythm Guitar is absolutely unbelievable. I am only up to DVD 3 and it has made a lot of difference to my playing guitar. I can't wait to work my way thru the rest of the course.

Your style of teaching is also very good, not like some others who just want to "show off " how good they are playing their screaming loud shreds.

Thanks for the brilliant course Jonathan.

I have just finished the Dynamic Rhythm Guitar course (2 Months Feb & March almost every day 0.5Hr each day), with several sections repeated many times.

I will take a break and probably repeat the whole course again... Why?

Well I have FOUND it be of great personal benefit, maybe I just wasn’t ready to understand earlier but it is starting to make sense THANKS !!!

The background info at the beginning isn't exciting, but it's stuff I need to know, so I appreciated your explanations. A lot of cool ideas come out later in the examples! Now I have a list of techniques to go apply to songs I've played the same way for years - thanks for the creative juice!

Dynamic Rhythm Guitar is a very comprehensive guitar course. Apart from standard rhythm guitar lessons the course covers both various playing styles/techniques and relevant music theory. For a veteran player - like me - it helps to widen the scope of guitar playing ('get out of the barre-box') as well as refresh the music theory skills. It is up to the student which styles of the new menu he/she will really concentrate later on, and utilize on stage. Moreover, it is useful that the teacher himself can demonstrate all the 'tricks' in an instructive way.

I’ve been playing for about a year and found myself no longer progressing. Your courses have moved me to a new level and I’m having so much fun! I appreciate that you fully explain all concepts. Now I understand theory! I really appreciate your teaching style. I feel like I’m getting personal lessons. Thanks for your great courses.

First, I am 62 years old and have been playing since I was 11 years old. I purchased your I, IV, V course and learned a tremendous amount about theory and this (Dynamic Rhythm Guitar) is a great followup to add another dimension to my playing.

What I am finding is it contains many things I have used for years but not a well as I should have being self taught. I always let me picking hand lead me to where is wanted to go. Now I understand why it did it. Thanks!

I'm just finishing up the DRG course and it has been most helpful in opening up my understanding of the instrument and the relationship of many aspects of playing. It's allowed me to explore major/minor chords and their relation to scales, and improve my rhythm and picking consistency in the process. Thanks for the drum tracks too!

The best thing about it is your way of teaching about the instrument and connecting all the dots. It's more helpful to learn a technique or a concept (maybe in the context of learning a song or a simple progression). You're able to teach the instrument in such a way that a person can find their way around and discover what sounds good and be able to "hear" the note and connect it visually on the guitar.

Thanks for this course and your patience in how you teach it. Keep up the great instruction.

G'day!