Guitar Lessons | 6-String-Videos

Mike: Hi folks, how are you doing? It's Mike Herberts here, with a late night call for you. Something I haven't done before, I'm actually going to be speaking to a guest that I've contacted over in the USA, where I know probably fifty or sixty percent of my subscribers are based, over in the US.

It is a guitar teacher from the US. Someone that I've got to know over the last few weeks because of a little venture that we've been working on together. And hopefully he's on the line at the moment, so I may be rambling on and there's no one there, but hopefully he is. Kenny are you there?

Kenny: I'm here Mike.

Mike: Hi Kenny, how are you?

Kenny: Good. How are you doing, Mike?

Mike: I'm really really good actually, I'm superb. Just for everyone's information, because they're listening to a recording, what time do you have there, over in the States where you are?

Kenny: It's a little bit after five right now.

Mike: Here it's just after nine, and pitch black because we turned the clocks back at the weekend. So it's really, really dark and wintry now, but never mind. Good time to sit and practice the guitar.

Kenny: It is.

Mike: OK, Kenny, let me just speak to my folks about how you and I bumped into each other, metaphorically if you like, on the 'Net. Just for everyone's background, Kenny is a professional guitar teacher. Unlike myself, who most of you that know me will know that is a self taught person. I'm self taught, and I use my methodology for how I taught myself, to show other people how to effectively teach themselves rather than take formal guitar lessons.

So Kenny has a much deeper knowledge, I think it's fair to say, than I do. And I know sometimes I don't display knowledge that I do actually have, because I don't want to baffle people, and I'll come back to that one in a second, but Kenny is on the other end of the scale. Kenny, just give us a bit of background, just so that people know, how long have you actually been teaching guitar?

Kenny: Sure. I've been playing guitar since I was pretty young. Around five is when I started actually. And I've had a lot of formal training, but I've been teaching guitar now for over 20 years, and I'm 40 right now, so I've been teaching and playing for over 30 years. I've been teaching guitar full time for the last 20 something years.

Mike: Also, can you just explain, because not everyone will be aware, that you're not just a new teacher. The Internet side of your teaching business is fairly new, but actually, you are in business as a guitar teacher. Just talk us through the nature of the business.

Kenny: Sure. Like I said, I've been playing and teaching guitar for a long time. Over 20 years of teaching full time. My wife and I have actually had a music school here in Georgia, where we live, for the last 20 years or so.

We've been teaching full time every day. I just teach guitar every day, six hours a day or so, so I've got a lot of experience working with people and figuring out what works and what doesn't. I've taught a lot of different age groups. So I'm teaching anywhere from really young children to customers as old as, one of my customers, he was 85.

Mike: Wow.

Kenny: So a wide range of people that I'm working with and have been working with for many years, so I try to appeal to as much of that I possibly can.

Mike: And in terms of your personal musical tastes, how does that allow your personal musical tastes?

Kenny: Sure, I think it's pretty eclectic. I like a lot of different things, but I'd say a majority of my teaching, I'd have to classify it as rock. For lack of a better term.

A lot of that stuff is modern rock, but I've done a lot of classical rock, country, personally I think I've studied a lot of jazz stuff. My playing personally, I like a lot of different things, but for the most part, it's a lot of rock stuff. I like to try to teach whatever people are in to. Try to focus on their style.

Mike: The reason I ask is because I just want to really let my subscribers know, because they know that my style of teaching, the type of music that I listen to, play and teach is quite different. In terms of my business model, if you like, that means there's a great gaping hole for people who have come to me for guidance to play rock and to play what we'd consider lead electric guitar really and rock, and really know their way around the fret board. That is not my area of expertise.

I think my area of expertise is to take single pieces of guitar music, stuff that can be played by one person, on his own, no accompaniment, doesn't have to be able to sing, and be able to play a complete piece if you like. Complete in terms of it's the whole piece of music, just with them and the guitar. That's obviously very much my style: ragtime, instrumental, blues and solo performance.

And that's the reason really that Kenny and I are really even talking to each other. All my subscribers, my loyal subscribers... Kenny, I couldn't begin to tell you what they're like. They have to be the most amazing subscribers on the Internet, I would think. We look after each other. We really do. And what I don't want anyone to think is that I would produce something just for the sake of it. And sell them down the line really and point them at something that I didn't think was of any use to them.

Kenny: Absolutely.

Mike: So this is not aimed... It's probably aimed at less than fifty percent of my subscribers. What I'm going to tell you about, because Kenny has got something really exciting that he's launched, and he very kindly contacted me and sent me a copy of his latest product that he's launched, and I have to say it's very very good.

It's incredibly well produced, it looks great, and when I started to investigate the material, I realized this was something that I would be prepared to put my name behind. And it's the first thing come across searching the Internet that I've been able to do that with.

So this is something that will appeal to a proportion of my subscribers, because it's the ones that want to learn that style of rock music, and I know you know your way around the fret board, Kenny. I sit wide mouthed watching you when you're able to put positions together, and I'm going to get you to describe your system in just a little bit of detail in just a second.

When I watched the way that you put that across, I get so many emails from people asking about "How do I learn scales?, How do I learn the pentatonic scale? How do I learn to be able move around that fret board with some intimacy?". And it takes a long time to learn to do that sort of thing. You must look around Kenny and be very disappointed with what's out there to try and point people in the right direction. There's not much really good stuff out there is there?

Kenny: No there's not. It is tough to find good things. There are a few really good things out there that are fantastic, but it's really tough. You're right. And that's how I came about creating this system was really looking for systems when I first started playing the guitar. It just seemed to me when I watched professional players play, in fact I remember back when I first started learning, you really didn't have any instructional videos yet.

It was really early 80's, and I was playing in the 70's and when I was a little kid, but early 80's I was playing some stuff and the VCR had just come into play. Really the first guitar videos were starting to be released. I remember previous to that, I was learning by just listening to the tapes or records actually...

Mike: I was going to say, because tapes were later, weren't they, it was all vinyl records.

Kenny: Yeah, that's right, I had the vinyl records and I had an old three speed, you know the old three speed record players? Well I would just turn it down to the lower speed...

Mike: Yeah, to slow it down, absolutely.

Kenny: Yeah, and I was listening and trying to grab their solos like that, and I learned a lot by ear by doing that, but then when I could actually see somebody play, it was pretty amazing. I remember seeing Larry Carlton play for the first time and when I watched him he was seeing something on the fret board that I wasn't seeing. He was seeing some sort of maybe an invisible grid, or maybe a hidden blueprint.

Mike: I know exactly what you mean. You must get loads of emails as well because that ability to be able to rest your hand on the guitar and know what key you're in and just know where does that blues pentatonic lie for that key. I mean that's way beyond me, I have no concept of how people could do that, or I certainly hadn't until I looked at the stuff you'd sent me. So I do know exactly what you mean. It must be so scary when you first start out. The skill level must seem just beyond reach, I would think.

Kenny: It does. It seems magical and way beyond reach. And I remember looking at that and saying, "Wow. You know, I know they're looking at something that I'm not seeing." And I thought, "Well, maybe I'll just learn scales, maybe that'll do it for me."

So I learned, I went through the concepts of learning all the scales and I remember seeing all these different formulas, you know?

Mike: Yes.

Kenny: The major scale has a formula. And then minor scales, flat threes and flat sevens, and it's just crazy and I was like, "Wow! How does anybody do all this?"

But over the years I've searched and looked for systems. And truthfully, I found a couple of little things here and there. You know, most people know about the CAGED system.

Mike: Yes. I'm interrupting. But I had an email and the listener, the person that emailed me, he's probably listening to this call right now, saying that he had to look at the CAGED system and asked: was I prepared to do a video about it?

And I have to say, and I'm admitting now, publicly, that I sort of shied away from it. It's something that's really not my forte. But I shied away, in a way saying, "You know, I didn't know if it was of any great particular use." Rather than saying, "I'm sorry. It's something that's sort of beyond me."

I'm rambling a bit because I'm going to get you to describe in a little bit of detail in a minute just how your system does it. Because unlike most systems that use five positions to learn the main pentatonic scales, you have dropped that down to three positions and done it in, I think, quite a unique way.

When it clicked in my mind, I sort of thought, "Well, this is pretty cool." Maybe even for me, and I'm getting on a bit. You know, I'm sort of getting on towards pension age. Not that I'll ever retire, I don't think I ever will.

But I saw it and it was fairly magical because within a few minutes, I realized what you've done. And I thought it was great. I thought it was super. And obviously that's the reason we're talking now, you know?

How did you come up with the system that you devised?

Kenny: Sure. Well the way that I came up with it was, like I said, I had been looking for systems for many years and learned a few things here and there. And I had been aware of the CAGED system. Basically, let me just go over just...

Mike: Kenny. I'm going to stop you there just for a second. Just in the simplest detail possible, just for subscribers who perhaps have not even heard of the CAGED system, could you give me a complete idiot/morons guide to what the CAGED system is?

Kenny: Absolutely. OK. Sure. CAGED, it's spelled C-A-G-E-D. And what it means is the open chord positions. Like your 'C', open 'C' chord. Like your acoustic chord 'C' and then the open 'A', the open 'G', the open 'E', and the open 'D'. Well, what they do is you take those chords and you string them up the neck and actually into positions where they can become barre chords.

So like if you took a 'C' chord and you leave it in your normal position 'C' and moved it up two frets, you'd have to close off the open strings.

Mike: With the barre finger, yes.

Kenny: With the barre finger in order for that to move up, right? And so that becomes a barre chord at that point. And then you do the same thing with the 'A', the 'G', the 'E', and the 'D'.

Well, the idea behind it is that you're playing five different chords up the neck, but each one of those chords is actually the same chord. So for example, if I move my 'C' chord up to two frets, it becomes a 'D' chord. It's in the 'D' position. And then the 'A' chord, I'm going to move that down to where it's also a 'D' and I'm going to move the 'G' shape chord all the way up until it's in the 'D' position. In other words, they're all on that 'D' position on the fretboard.

Mike: OK. And I think, because I can still remember the day, and I've been playing a long, long time, over 30 years, but I can still remember the day when I realized that a chord shape could actually be moved up the fretboard. And I can remember that feeling of excitement when it clicked in my brain that, "Oh yes, if I move that chord forward two frets it becomes a different chord."

And I think that's the thing that most people want to learn, barre chords, which I want to talk to you about as well because people do have a massive problem. They see it as some sort of enormous stumbling block, playing a barre chord.

So the CAGED system then, it's a memory system really, isn't it Kenny? It's a way of memorizing the positions for the scales, yes?

Kenny: The scales, right. So you can take those chords and turn them into barre chords. And then you're going to associate, with each one of the chords, you're going to associate a scale position.

And so there's five positions. And it's a good system, it works. But I feel like it's a little outdated as far as a system goes. But the main reason that I think that is because there's so much information that you have to remember.

Mike: Those subscribers that have looked at charts of the fretboard showing pentatonic scales and the CAGED systems will be wincing now and painfully remembering looking at those things in despair and throwing the book away or closing the page and just thinking, "I can never ever learn that."

Because I've looked at those chord charts all my life. Those charts for scales, all my life, and just at the point where I think I'm starting to understand, I come across some new bit and I just throw the damn thing away every time. And I never persisted to the point where I would really grasp what was going on.

And I'm sure there's an awful lot of subscribers nodding now thinking, "Yup, been there. I understand what you're talking about." And that's why I like the simplicity of what you've done.

So do you want to give us a bit of an insight then to how you developed that CAGED system into what you've got now?

Kenny: Sure. Yes. So what I did with CAGED basically was just took out a couple of the chords because I felt like it was too much information on the fretboard and it wasn't completely necessary. Because you don't really need five chords up the neck in order to be able to put the scale positions all the way across in one key.

I reduced it down to 'D', 'A', and 'E'. Those are chords that I use. So I called it the DAE system. And it's just and open 'D' chord, an open 'A' chord, and an open 'E' chord. And of course I'm stringing those up the neck just like you would for CAGED, but it's only three chords for you to remember instead of five.

So with the system DAE chord, actually when you move it up, it becomes like a barre cord. Like a 'B' major barre cord.

Mike: OK. Let me slow you down there Kenny because the level of lots of my subscribers now, it just starts to get slightly cloudy for them. As someone who's new to it, it may be easier for me to describe what I think is going on.

So go on, imagine that as you hold the 'D' chord down, just in a normal position you hold down a 'D' chord. If we then look at an 'A' shape, that's the second fret on the second, third, and forth string, if we move that shape forward sufficient frets so that it becomes a 'D' chord and we barre it and hold it in that position, that becomes the second position that you need to memorize for your scale positions that Kenny will talk about in a second.

And because it's the DAE system, D-A-E, then we take an 'E' shape and we move that sufficient spaces forward, sufficient frets forward until that becomes a 'D' chord. And those become the three, what Kenny, anchor points? I don't know what you'd call them. Anchor points I guess.

Kenny: Yes. You're right, anchor points is great. And they're markers. They're markers to make the positions.

Mike: And these are the mental markers then yes?

Kenny: Yes.

Mike: These are just mental, yes? OK.

I don't want to make it too complex, but yes, OK.

Kenny: You're right. A lot of people will ask me, "Are you talking about these chords up the neck, do you mean that those are the chords in the song?" And I say, "No. No. These are just markers to help us play in a particular key."

Since we started out talking about 'D', let's just say we're playing in 'D' major and you described how to move the 'A' chord up and the 'E' chord up. Well when you move that 'A' chord up to that 'D' position, it becomes a barre chord. So it's just plain old barre chord shape. I call that root five major. Some people call it a double barre chord. It's where you use your first finger and your third finger one fret apart.

Mike: Yes. And I think in terms of barre cords, for a lot of people, especially beginners, that's one of the more difficult ones because it takes quite a bit of strength with that ring finger to hold that second point. It's like two barres, so you're barring all six strings plus the three strings of what would be an 'A' position.

It's a hard one to learn isn't it? Especially on an acoustic guitar, it's very tricky.

But guys, what you need to remember is what Kenny's describing, it's not that you need to hold that chord down, that it merely mentally gives you the position that you're going to play your scale in. Yes, am I right Kenny?

Kenny: Absolutely. You don't even have to be able to hold it down. You just have to be able to know where it's supposed to go. And if you can just hold the 'A' part of it, you know the ring finger part of it, that's three notes, that's all it is.

Mike: That's to give you the mental image of where you are.

Kenny: Exactly. And then so what we do is we have the three chords in the three positions, they're all three in a position where they create a 'D' chord. And we attach two pentatonic scale shapes to each one. That's all we're doing.

Now, there are five pentatonic scale shapes all together. And I'd like to talk just a second about why I use pentatonic because I don't want people to think it's too complex.

Mike: Yes, there's always a danger isn't there? There's a massive danger when you start to get to this point. And if my subscribers are like me when they've started, and I know lots of them are, it's at this point where you mentally switch off.

And it really is a shame because once you get past that mental barrier of understand exactly what you're talking about, which is what happened to me when I looked at the DVD, looking at the DVDs made all the difference when it was described to me as opposed to looking at you know...

Kenny: Absolutely.

Mike: Yes, seeing it in action just...

Kenny: It's very visual. It's completely a visual system which is great because there's no reading music or anything involved. It's just a visual picture. And just like I was saying when I was watching Carlton play, I realized he was looking at a picture of some sort.

Mike: Sure.

Kenny: And it's his little system. And so this is my system. It's my picture of the fretboard and it's where I can find all the good notes.

I use the pentatonic scale because it really works for everything. It's great, it's real simple. And then if we want we can add extra notes to the pentatonic scale whenever we want just by ear if nothing else.

Mike: And this is where it all starts to get complex. I know, because if I think back I think one of my talents is my ability to think back to when I started and remember the pain and the torture of trying to get my brain around exactly what was going on when people were talking about what was a pentatonic scale and then talking about a blues scale. And the brain starts to explode at that point.

When what you've explained very clearly, I think, in the DVDs is a blues scale is just a pentatonic scale with a couple of notes added in or a couple of notes changed around. And then you do the same...

Kenny: Right, just one note after.

Mike: Yes, and then you do the same and turn it into a diatonic scale and do lots of other clever things with this basic system.

Kenny: Right, absolutely.

Mike: Just as a note to everyone as well, Kenny's prepared an awful lot of stuff to demonstrate this system to people who want to play rock guitar basically. That's what we're talking about Kenny. We're not talking about the people who want to learn my sort of ragtime and that type of instrumental stuff where the old blues players would use maybe six notes out of the pentatonic scale in their entire career. So we're not talking about...

Kenny: Yes, that is true.

Mike: Yes, what we're talking about is people who really want to master the whole fretboard in various styles so that they can be with other musicians and the guy shouts, "We're in 'B' flat" and very quickly the player then knows, "Well, OK. We're in 'B' flat. We're playing this style of music. This is the scales we're going to be using there in my position."

This is the magic isn't it? This is what you were talking about.

Kenny: It is. It's great to, say, layout who it is for. Because it is for the guy who wants to play with another guy, a group, or maybe it's just him and his buddy.

And one guy lays down a nice cord progression and he wants to be able to know what key he's in, be able to play a nice solo board, improvise a nice idea, then sound good, and know what he's doing. To look like he knows what he's doing and do it very quickly and easily without having to think about a lot of music theory or anything like that.

Mike: Sure.

Kenny: So this whole system is like a picture. That's what you want to think of it as. It's a picture of a blueprint for you to follow that's really, really simple to work with and you can identify you're key really quickly.

Mike: Now you've been using this system for quite a long time now, but you've just recently launched a revised version of it.

And could you just tell us Kenny, I know you're doing a big launch, a big, big launch and I know it's been really, really successful. Because I know it's a style of music that a lot of people want to learn.

But you've put together a blog and you put together a site where people can go and view some of the material downloads and free videos. You don't have to tell us the URL. The guys that are listening to this, when this call is finished, you'll be taken straight to a page with the links to go and get this stuff that Kenny's going to tell you about. So I'll set it up that way Kenny, so that it just redirects to a page with the links then to do that, which would be quite a smart, cool thing to do I think.

But could you tell us what is that you're actually giving away effectively? I mean you're giving away videos and things in the same way that I do. What are they going to get? And what do they have to do to get it and all that good stuff?

Kenny: Sure. They just go to the blog. Go to our blog. And then there's always going to be a video posted there on the blog. And there's some links for the previous videos we've been sending out. Because we've been sending these out for a few weeks now, so there's going to be several videos there for them to watch. And in the weeks coming there's going to be more for them to watch as well.

So anyway, you just go there and watch the video. And then I'm inviting people to just go ahead and comment right there on the same page. Let me know what they think about the video. And we're getting a lot of comments. I just love to hear from people and what they think. And I get a lot of great comments everyday from the videos, from the course, and people just really respond to it well.

So I encourage people to do that. And when they do, we're automatically registering them to register for a free copy of "Guitar in 60 Seconds" because we are going to give away a few copies of the course.

Mike: OK.

Kenny: And like Mike was saying, this is 2.0. So we released the original version back in December of '06 and it was really successful. So I've upgraded it, added four new videos. So it's a 10 DVD set now. Four new DVDs, so it's a 10 DVD set. And it's got nearly 18 or so hours of instructions, a lot of information.

Mike: It is good quality Kenny, I have to say. I was quite taken aback when it arrived. In fact, two copies arrived didn't they?

Kenny: Yes, that's right.

Mike: And guys, if you want to master the fretboard, you want to know your way around that fretboard; you've prepared to invest some time and effort into, and some money as well eventually if you really want to master it. But it is about time, effort, grit, and just tenacity, isn't it Kenny, really, ultimately?

Kenny: It is. It is about that. There is some work involved in doing it but it's a lot easier than just getting a scale book and learning scales because that's something that lot of people get confused about. I always like to tell them, my course is not a compilation of information that they can get for free somewhere else.

Mike: No, it isn't.

Kenny: Because if all I did was give you a bunch of scales and I hand you a bunch of chords and told you how they fit together, it would be useful, but it's not really giving you the edge.

Mike: No.

Kenny: What I've done is created a system of this stuff; it's a way of looking at. So when you look at your fingerboard, you're going to see the information right on the board. And I'd like to say also, the course has got, it's not just for the guys who want to do this. I have two DVDs dedicated to following also. If you're a total beginner and never played before, we've got you covered on that.

I've got two DVDs dedicated to that person.

Mike: Is that part of what you sent me Kenny?

Kenny: Yes it is.

Mike: All right. Because I didn't get that far, I was straight on the phone to you, as you know, when I saw the system.

Kenny: No problem.

Mike: So I didn't actually checkout those others, those other DVDs.

Kenny: Right. So we've got some fundamentals in there. And every one of these, like the fundamentals series, well, I have a system in there that I call chord connections. I teach people how to change from chord to chord smoothly and there's a couple of tricks to doing that.

I know a lot of guitar teachers, when I was taking lessons, I would go in and they give you a sheet of chords and say, "Learn these and then next week we'll start learning some songs."

Mike: [laughs]

Kenny: And there's so much more in between.

Mike: That really is funny Kenny, because I've just been answering an email about half an hour ago. I'm going to try and find it while I'm on the call if I can. I'm on the other machine here.

Kenny: Sure.

Mike: And it was a guy that said that nobody talks about the technique, you know, the physical technique of guitar in terms of how you move your hands around. And said he heads in the books where it says, "Put this finger there." Which is a bit like saying to a golfer, "Put the ball down and hit it as far you can towards that hole" without talking about the technique.

And that's what it's like isn't it?

Kenny: It is. It is exactly like that. It really is.

Mike: So this thing is physically talking about how to move around between chords?

Kenny: Exactly.

Mike: OK. That's the stuff that new guitarists want to know. That's the stuff that they think is the magic, the black hole, the science, the wizardry if you like.

Kenny: Exactly.

Mike: I don't know if you've ever done this, but when I get people who say they fear that they're not making the progress they thought they would do, what I do is get them to change hands with the guitar. So if they're right handed, I say, "Pick it up with your left hand and try and hold a chord down. Tell me what it feels like because that's what it felt like when you started out with your proper hand."

Kenny: That's so true.

Mike: And it feel bizarre; and it feels impossible, sometimes. And I know people must pick up their guitar and just think "No, this is impossible."

But it's not impossible, is it, because you can do it. I've watched you doing it. You've watched me play, and I've watched you play; and we can do it. It's not impossible: it's doable, isn't it?

Mike: It's totally doable.

And it's not just special people or anything: anybody can do it. You just need a good system to follow, and encouragement and the time to go through it and make it happen. And it's a lot of fun.

That's the main thing: it needs to be fun and interesting.

And I try to keep it that way when I'm teaching people. And, when I laid out the course, I didn't do it with any particular songs; I didn't try to force any style on you -

Mike: I think you were just reading my mind there, because I was just about to say you don't clutter it up with songs. You really do focus on the learning of that system.

Kenny: Yes, I do. I wanted to stay on focus. I wanted to make it more generic, so that it would apply to anyone who wanted to learn to play, regardless of style. So, whatever you want to play on the guitar, you'll be able to do it.

I'm just wanting to teach you how to see the music on the fretboard. That's my main thing: how to see what you'll do on the fretboard - and then to give you systems or tools or, you might just say, little ideas about how physically to move from chord to chord, how physically to remember the scales on the fretboard, how physically to know what chord progression - what chords belong together.

That's such a great question for beginners. They always want to know: "I have this book of 1, 001 chords; but how do I put these together? How do I make a song?"

Mike: [laughs] Why do people do that? I've seen it advertised. I've seen some Google ads. If you search on Google for guitar and learning guitar, there are 250 million chords in a free PDF. And I look at those things; and it's just pathetic, isn't it? I mean there's just no use whatsoever, because, if you don't know which three or four chords go together in a song, it doesn't matter how many chords you know. It's irrelevant, isn't it? Stupid.

Kenny: It's completely irrelevant. It really is. It's completely irrelevant, because you have to know how they're put together.

I remember that: one of my first questions. I had a little bitty chord book; it had, I think, the As, the Bs -

Mike: And they do - why do they do A, A minor, A - Why do they do that, because all those As don't go together, do they?

Kenny: No, they don't; they don't go together. And they didn't make a song. And I was playing A to A minor, and it just sounds terrible.

Mike: It sounds awful.

Kenny: What am I going to do?

Mike: Sure.

Kenny: That's right. So I really talk about that in the course and cover that very well. I teach you a little tool -a visual tool - that you can see these chords, the order of the chords; and you can see exactly which chords belong together, right on the fretboard.

And it's a little number system. It's not tablature: that's a different number system. But it's a number system that names the chord by number; it's really, really simple; and it's all illustrated with professional illustrations throughout the book.

I don't have any tabs in the book. I don't have any notation. It's not diagrams, just pictures for you to see, so you can see exactly what I'm talking about in each place.

Mike: And I would think the biggest learning tool, for me anyway - and, I know, for a lot of my subscribers - is the actual video. To actually see something is worth a million words, and a million diagrams - actually watching something happen, you know?

Kenny: Totally. That's how I came up with the whole thing - just watching how players play, and realizing -

Mike: I think that what's staggering is that, when you and I started to play, there was no such thing; these things didn't exist - certainly not something by which you could reach across the Atlantic Ocean and talk to each other. And people in your country buy videos from me; and people in the U.K. buy stuff from you; and there's a whole wealth of information. That just didn't exist for us; did it?

Kenny: It did not exist at all, and you were just so limited in what you could do. And it was always that one guy in the neighborhood who was the greatest player of all and you just learned from him and the records as well as you could.

It was an amazing thing, when videos came out: I thought it was just fantastic. And there's no better way.

Mike: No, I don't think there's a better way - apart from sitting in the room, maybe. I'm maybe going to come over to the U.S. one of these days, and I'll do a bit of a tour, meeting my subscribers.

And, if you ever come over to the U.K., Kenny, you come up to where I am, and we'll do some bit of a road show or something.

Kenny: I'd love it.

Mike: I want to push this on a little bit, 'cause I don't want it to drag on too long.

I'll talk about your system in a second, and where people can go and how they can get hold of this stuff.

Briefly tell us, what are my subscribers going to get if they go and have a look at your stuff - which we'd love them to do - because we're not going to twist their arms into buying anything in particular, but we want them to have a look at the stuff and to comment on it, because we know that helps you. What are they likely to see when they get to where we're going to send them?

Kenny: They'll go to the blog and see some different videos. Some will be about the chord ideas that we talked about today; some of them will be about the soloing ideas. Of course, we'll have one there called the Pentatonic Master Scale System It's going to talk about Pentatonics, the DAE System; all of them will be there. Not all of those are there right this second, but they will be in the next few days. We're releasing these to our list as we go through the launch.

Anyway, you'll get a lot of information: all this stuff we talked about today. When you actually get the course, there is so much more inside the course. These are the highlights of it and the things that, I think, are really going to excite you the most and just give you that magic that you're looking for.

But there's so much more there, as I said. We go from total beginner, all the way up to much more advanced ideas. So there's something in there for everybody, and I don't think you'll be disappointed in any way.

Mike: Nope. I agree with you Kenny; otherwise, I wouldn't have even bothered to have the call. So it's super stuff.

My subscribers know that I'm not going to palm them off with something that's not worth it. And I'm not even asking them to buy your course, Kenny. I'm asking them to go and have a look.

I know that, among my subscribers, there are people who have learned some of my stuff and are going beyond where I can take them, really; and they really do want to master the thing and master every note on the guitar and be able to decide smoothly what key we're in and what sequence of notes we'll use in that key.

Just one thing, I wanted to mention this, and I meant to get this one in. For the various Pentatonic positions, there are certain little sort of phrases and tricks, if you like, that become very common. What am I trying to say?

There are little riffs for each position. And, as you see them and learn them, you realize why they've become so popular - because they're quite easy to manipulate and get around. And they become the kind of popular music, if you like.

So, for any position, there'll be a little riff about which everybody will go "Yeah, yeah; now I know why, and now I know how that one's played." Yeah?

Kenny: That's right. Exactly. You'll play the riff from "Layla" in the position and you'll go "Wow, I see where that came from."

Mike: And isn't it great to realize that, although they're gods to us, Hendrix was still using the same scales that everybody else used?

Kenny: Absolutely. He had the same tools we had. Exactly right.

Mike: Yeah. Super! Kenny, I think we covered a lot of ground there. And what I'll do is arrange this for everybody that's still listening... at the end of this page, we'll redirect and take you straight to the stuff that Kenny's been talking about.

Please, go and have a look at it. Believe me, this is not normal, run-of-the-mill stuff; this is not just, as Kenny said, a load of stuff that's pulled from other places. This is original material. This is an original teaching method.

And I do take my heart to Kenny. I know we have mutual respect. I know Kenny's said nice things about my stuff; I'm saying nice things about his.

It is the only thing I've found, out there, that I think will take - of my subscribers, the ones who want to go that extra distance - it's the only thing I've seen that'll take you there.
So I'm really pleased to be involved with it, Kenny.

Kenny: We're happy to be with you.

Mike: And we'll speak, no doubt, I hope - if you do go to Kenny's blog and you are leaving a comment, you might just mention in this comment that you were on this call and you listened through Mike Herberts instructional videos and that that's how you got there. And that would give you some feedback, Kenny, I think; will it?

Kenny: Absolutely. And I just want to mention, too, that, when they're on the blog, they can also download one of the e-books from the course and take a look at what the illustrations look like, so they'll have an idea.

Mike: Fantastic.

And I think what we'll also do - we only touched on it briefly, Kenny; but I do have two copies of your course, and I think we'll put one up as a prize, with your permission.

Kenny: Yes. Let's do that.

Mike: And I may even just be putting up a couple of snatches from the course, just to show you really what's available and what you're getting.

Kenny: Sounds good.

Mike: Kenny, it's been a real pleasure. I've really enjoyed it. It's been super, hasn't it?

Kenny: It has. It's been great, Mike. I've enjoyed talking to another guitar teacher and another guitar player and talking to your subscribers. A lot of quality in that.

Mike: Fantastic.

Kenny: I welcome anybody's emails. Any questions or things: I'd be glad to help them out.

Mike: OK! Kenny, it's been great. I'll speak to you again soon. Thanks very much.

Kenny: all right, Mike; thanks so much for having me.

Mike: Thank you. Take care. Bye-bye.

Kenny: all right. You too.