Kiko Loureiro – Creative Fusion – Beyond Pentatonics and Power Chords

Kiko Loureiro really needs no introduction to guitar fans; he’s been releasing albums since 1992 with his Power Metal band Angra, with Finnish vocalist Tarja Turunen (ex-Nightwish vocalist and renowned solo artist) then of course on numerous solo outings (most recent of which is Full Blast). He’s also released several other instructional products in his native Brazil and worked with many of the greatest rock musicians of the day (Joe Satriani, Doug Wimbish, Victor Wooten, Steve Harris, Mike Terrana) -- making him quite clearly an extremely versatile and well respected virtuoso musician as well as an accomplished educator.

Creative Fusion -- Beyond Pentatonics and Power Chords is a 2 DVD set for Rock House Method which attempts to move beyond the harmonic confines of rock cliches into Jazz/Fusion territory -- but always with an eye to the Rock player which not only makes it very accessible to different schools of players but gives those rock players who are looking to break away from old habits an extremely good starting point with which to do so.

Let me address the preliminaries very quickly and move onto the contents of the DVD’s without delay. As with the other Rock House Method products I’ve reviewed Creative Fusion has a wealth of backing tracks, a metronome, tuner and online lessons to elaborate on various theoretical principles available courtesy of the RH website. The sheer value for money and support for all Rock House products is second to none, and their production values throughout are absolutely first rate -- in my opinion, the best in the business.

Instead of  exhasutively examining every section of the DVD (which would be hard work to write, and even more onerous to read) I’ll give you an overview of the contents (which is illuminating in and of itself)

I found it refreshing to see no focus on technique. For a player who is as technically able as Kiko to move beyond mechanics into the realms of expanding musical horizons and capabilities shows how forward-thinking the DVD set manages to be.

There are of course a couple of other sections dealing with further aspects of those main areas (single string/string crossing arpeggios as building blocks, further ideas when dealing with chord melody) but the breadth of topics covered, and the detail each topic is examined in are an excellent balance of challenge and completeness. Taking a closer look at the at the “open voicings” section reveals Kiko’s absolute familiarity with the CAGED system and his extremely fluid playing; moving around the entirety of the fretboard he moves from voicing to voicing with ease and manages to impart a glimpse of the possibilities inherent in even a brief study of harmony.

Moving onto the combinations of three arpeggios from a mode in order to outline the notes of the mode and provide a rich depth of harmonic material his fretboard knowledge is again evident as he builds on the foundations laid earlier in the DVD to explain the interaction of notes such as the 9th, 11th, and 13th as well as multiple voicings to arrive at the notes of the mode without simply applying the intervallic formulae to a major scale -- it was, for me at least, a refreshing way of dealing with a subject many find to be frustrating. Throughout the DVD one is stuck by the versatility and knowledge on display and of course as with all Rock House products there’s an interview with Joe P, two performances from Kiko’s solo back catalogue and ultimately another fantastic release.

Clearly it’s beyond even the scope of a 2 DVD set to cover all the possibilities and approaches which a Fusion player would encompass but to give both Kiko and Rock House credit they haven’t attempted to do so -- Creative Fusion is a superb grounding in the harmonic and melodic material essential to the style and as usual all the examples are beautifully illustrated and demonstrated. I can’t give such a thorough and inspiring product anything other than the full 5 stars.

Absolutely recommended!

http://www.kikoloureiro.com.br/

http://www.angra.net/

http://www.rockhousemethod.com/

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