My Background: In order to level set you as to my comments here is a little about me. I have been playing pretty consistently for about 1.5 years. I still consider myself a novice guitar player. I know 1/2 dozen cords, a few songs, some typical beginner licks and have been practicing the A major and A minor pentatonic scales both in the first position. I am pretty good with those two scales. I have no problem reading most guitar tablature.

What You Need To Know This is just my opinion. It is key that you can read guitar tablature. Also, it would be VERY helpful if you knew many (more than I do) of the pentatonic scales and several of the positions for each (there are 5 positions for each scale). Mat (the instructor) only shows you one scale and in a single position (A Major "Blues" scale). He does this very quickly at the start of the DVD. It would also be very helpful if you are proficient at bends, hammer ons, pull offs and slides. You will also do better if you have some skill in a few different strumming techniques, including muted tones. Clearly all of these are key elements of blues guitar (actually any guitar work) and he uses them in abundance.

The Instruction and Licks: As I mentioned he does show one of the scales he calls the "A" blues scale. However he is all over the place on the fret board (uses far more than just this one scale) and if you don't have some degree of proficiency in playing scales you will not get much from this DVD. He also shows you quickly how to tune a guitar. However I'm guessing that anyone who would remotely be able to use this DVD would already know how to do that.

The licks he shows are very cool and if you can learn some of them they can be strung together to really jam. They range widely in level of complexity. There are a few that could be played by a beginner who has little experience (although they are the exception). Any beginner trying to learn these licks would have to be highly motivated and determined. Mat does include the tablature for each of the licks which is very good. In most places on the DVD he shows both of his hands so you can see the fret work as well and the picking. He does slow his playing down and for the most part you can figure out what he is doing. However he is so versed in what he is doing that he does sometimes make assumptions that you understand what he just did or what he is telling you. This is where it will be difficult for beginners.

Bottom Line: Pretty cool DVD. With my current skill level I will be able to make some use out of it but by in large it is a little beyond me still. That said I am still very happy I bought it because I am sick of just practicing scales up and down, up and down, without doing anything cool. You can not even get 30 minutes of live guitar lessons for $10 - $15. The DVD is done well enough such that if you have some ability to play and want to check out some cool licks it is well worth the money.

It would be hard to find this much basic "lick" instruction from anyone and get it for this price. Play it over and over. Well set up to let you work each lick. Not necessarily for beginners but even a newbie could get inspired for cheap.

This dvd is awsomes!!! It's not really for beginners though, before buying this dvd you should know how to do slides, hammer-ons,pull-offs, and bends. Overall it is very good and you can learn a lot of cool licks to impress your friends.

I had gotten a few different DVD's and I think that this is one of the best. First of all, the Hal Leonard stuff seems to be the best (I have some of the Signature Lick Series with Greg Koch and they are also very good). I got a lot of good stuff from this one! Mat Gurman is damn good! In fact, I'm on here now buying this one as a gift for my bro.

This is a really well done DVD and you'll get what you expect. I have purchased several DVDs and this one is near the top of the list. Great instructor, well shot, and easy to follow.