Originally Posted by
Alex Orr
I can't speak to Mike's mando lessons on ArtistWorks, but I've been less than impressed with Michael Daves' bluegrass vocal course and Nathan East's bass course. Nathan's course is embarassingly bad. The camera work is not great, the sound is frequently muffled, and the lessons are about 3-5 minutes each and frequently consist of Nathan running over a concept in a few words and then just noodling for a few minutes. Daves' course is a little better. His first section on lead singing and how melodies work is pretty solid, but his section on harmony singing leaves a lot to be desired. For me, at least, that was the main thing I wanted to learn about in great detail and IMO he could have made it a much stronger module. Both of these guys are world-class musicians and I know Daves also teaches, so I honestly think a lot of the fault lies with the ArtistWorks' folks. I feel like in those courses they simply did a poor judge executing on an educational product. It seems like they were simply trying to get as much content taught in a day or two just so they could throw it all up on the website ASAP. The fact that there are about forty lessons (all under 5 minutes each) where Nathan is wearing the same shirt suggests it was pretty rushed. Also, they hardly ever seem to update courses once the go up on the site. One of the great things about PegHead Nation is that the lessons seem to be longer with the instructors taking more time to explain things, and they add a new lesson every couple of weeks. Granted, some of that success may simply be due to the instructors I've subscribed to on the site. Sharon Gilchrist, in particular, simply has an incredible gift for teaching. Compton is also pretty good, though I do feel he occassionally glides over some parts that justify some greater explanation, plus, in many cases what he's teaching does not much the accompanying tab/sheet music.