Logical Lead Guitar – Review
By Adam St. James
Reviewed By Shawn Bradshaw (Cyberfret.com)
rated (5 out of 5)

Logical Lead Guitar

There are a lot of products out there covering the topic of how to play lead guitar. So a valid question is why is “Logical Lead Guitar” by Adam St. James any different than the rest of the pack? Well sit back and I will do my best to help give you a good picture of what this lead guitar course is all about.

The Author

First I want to talk about the author before even going into the details of the course. The first thing you should investigate with any product you are considering is who wrote the information. I don’t think the fact that someone has played guitar for a number of years is enough of a qualification, and should never be the only factor that you look at when assessing someone’s qualifications to teach you guitar.  Adam St. James has a resume that is too big for me to cover here, but I want to mention a few things that I feel are important for you to know.

First, Adam has extensive background as private guitar teacher. What his 25 years of teaching experience brings to the table is a proven method on how to teach you how to play lead guitar. He has written instruction books that have been published by Hal Leonard. Adam has interviewed hundreds of top guitar players as a music journalist for various magazines, newspapers, and for Internet sites such as Guitar.com. He not only teaches and writes, but is also a regular performer who has shared the stage with many big acts. Put all of that together with college music studies and you have someone who is well qualified to take you on your journey to playing screaming lead guitar.

The Course

So now lets look at the course itself. “Logical Lead Guitar” is made up of 2 DVDs clocking in at around 4 hours of video instruction. There is also a CD with more examples and Jam Tracks that you can use to practice with. There is a large 3 ring binder that holds all 11 books, totaling more than 563 pages of text and examples. There is definitely a lot of information here, but Adam does a great job of keeping things simple. Adam plays and explains all of the examples from the books on the DVDs. But the books offer even more insight into playing lead guitar than is covered on the DVDs alone.

Every product on how to play lead guitar includes at least some information on scales, and “Logical Lead Guitar” is no exception. But scales themselves are not going to help you start playing lead guitar any more than knowing the alphabet will make you a top-selling novelist. If you have ever practiced scales but can’t seem to use them in your solos, Adam demonstrates exactly how to make music out of them. He does this by breaking the scale forms down in to smaller subsections and shows you some real world riffs you can start using in your own solos right away. Not just a few, there are 500 examples in the books of this course, so you should not be hurting for lead guitar ideas.

Adam covers pentatonic and diatonic scales, as well as common arpeggio forms. He also covers the techniques that you need to help bring your solos to life, like bends, slides, hammer-ons and pull-offs. Music theory is also covered, but in a very practical way that is easy to understand.

The Downside

The only thing that I didn’t like about this course was cosmetic in nature rather than with the content. All of the books are in one 3-ring notebook. With so many pages, it was a little difficult to manage all one place. So I might suggest investing in a few smaller 3-ring notebooks to break up the books and make things a little more manageable.

The Bottom Line

“Logical Lead Guitar” really offers a unique look at the world of playing lead guitar from an experienced teacher and performer. Whether you are new to soloing, or already have some experience I highly recommend this course. You will certainly not find anything like this available at your local music store.

Get Some Free Stuff

Be sure and sign up for the Logical Lead Guitar Newsletter. I receive it myself and Adam offers a lot of free guitar tips, lessons and more. After signing up you will receive a link to download 2 free guitar e-books from the course; “Which Notes To Bend”, and “15 More Fret-Hand Exercises”. The Logical Lead Guitar site also has other free guitar lessons, and interviews that Adam has done with various guitar players. And of course there is plenty of info about the course including video samples.

Logical Lead Guitar Website