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Rusty Cooley – The Art of Picking, Shred Guitar Manifesto, Extreme Pentatonics
Rusty Cooley Extreme Pentatonics/The Art of Picking/Shred Manifesto
Note -- I’m not going to mention Rusty’s obvious speed and technical ability. Take it as read all the excercises are played at top speed with the clarity we’ve come to expect. Worth mentioning at this point is the fact that Rusty has what I call a “two stage” picking technique. Up to a certain speed he picks from the wrist as so many top pickers do, and in order to accelerate beyond that he starts to use what has been referred to as “Spasmodic Arm Vibration” -- make of that what you will.These videos are not recorded to the same standard as, for example, the REH series (Rusty’s front room makes an acceptable substitute however!) but they are quite charming in that he’s clearly working on a shoestring budget and still managing to produce the goods. Don’t let that aside put you off…we’re interested in the playing right?
Update 19/12/2009
I’ve recently revisited this review and I think that I’ve been over critical at times. Rusty has presented everything here as clearly as possible given the constraints and even such other luminaries as Jeff Loomis have noted how helpful they found these videos to be. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with presenting “Picking a la Rusty” instead of simply revisiting old and established picking licks or pentatonic ideas. Rusty is mainly self taught (a fact which I didn’t know until watching Fretboard Autopsy Level One ) so his approach isn’t the atypical shredder’s “variations on a theme” -- the logical examination of all the material is most definitely atypical of his style so from this point on….ignore some of the criticisms! It’s a reviewer’s luxury to change their mind and I think that given an RC7G and time to play I would learn every damn thing here.
Extreme Pentatonics is a rather thorough look at the humble pentatonic scale starting with the box shapes everyone knows and loves, and progressing quickly into 3 note per string shapes. These are broken down into one, and two string licks which then progress into covering the whole neck in an extended scale format. Not content to stop there, Rusty runs through string skipping patterns, and thence to the blues scale while re-covering much of the same ground. The next section is devoted to the 7 string and re-states all the same material with the addition of the usual extra string tuned to B. The final section covers the “licks” which provide slightly more musical examples while utilising combinations of tapping, legato, picking, string skipping and hammer-ons from nowhere. All the scales are complete with matching diagrams in order to better visualise the material, but as with a lot of Rusty’s material the rather sensible and logical, methodical approach to learning a basic concept and expanding on it isn’t for everyone -- it can develop overly mechanical phrasing which, while undoubtedly fast isn’t as appealing as a slightly less logical approach….BUT it is very effective. Learning the fretboard in this manner removes those mental blocks which so many players run into (a theme continued in his latest videos) and allows you to connect those oh-so-typical pentatonic phrases that I know will get broken out whilst shredding these ideas over backing tracks.
The Art of Picking as, as you might expect a similarly comprehensive approach to developing your picking chops and as such is a somewhat dry (and short at 36 pages) treatise on that technique as applied to a number of licks which are laid out in a familiar, linear manner. If you’re looking for slightly more Jazzy “angular” licks then don’t look here -- these high speed beasts are atypically metal in their note choices and isn’t as much as a complete breakdown on picking as it is a selection of picking licks.
Then again, there are so many other examinations of alternate picking that it’s almost redundant to keep mentioning “synchronisation, practise with a metronom” so having this much material to work from is probably more helpful than hearing the old standard advice repeated once again.
Shred Guitar Manifesto is a conglomeration which covers two of Rusty’s compositions (The Butcher and Hillbillly Militia) before moving onto his “Legato Workout” which is a comprehensive series of finger excercises starting with basic trills and moving up to four-finger symettrical stretches by way of (yes, you guessed it) three-finger finger torture. Not much to note here aside from the usual caveat to be careful whilst practicing anything quite this intense if you’re not used to it -- I’ve already injured myself whilst trying some of it!
The Rest of the DVD is divided into four sections -- Arpeggio, Legato, Picking and Combination which are simply a collection of more terryfying licks featuring those techniques. There are examples of everything from the standard arpeggio sequences, to more picking licks a la art of picking, some quite tasty Derek Taylor-style tapping/legato licks and of note is the fact that Rusty always puts this licks into a theoretical context so you know exactly what you’re playing rather than just hitting you with some fretboard shapes and moving swiftly on.
I know a lot of people have found these DVD’s to be exceptionally helpful and theres an awful lot of material here to be certain. Rusty establishes a certain outlook here and concentrates on musical phrases rather than dissections of technique and I think that’s a very interesting approach when so many other shredders are still trying to teach you how to sweep.
Not essential per se but certainly highly recommended and if you only bought these Videos then in many ways these are all you would need.
The Art of Picking Rating: 
Shred Guitar Manifesto Rating:
Extreme Pentatonics Rating:
[...] for some time and having already taken a look at some of Rusty’s other releases with CFH (here) I’ve been very keen to see his Rock House Method DVD series entitled “Fretboard [...]
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