Review of Creative Speed-Building Picking Techniques DVD

If there seems something oxymoronic about the title of Mike Campese’s new instructional DVD, Creative Speed-Building Picking Techniques, it’s because the terms “creative” and “speed-building” don’t belong in the same hemisphere. And yet, in the video’s 55 minutes, Campese manages to bring at least a simulacrum of “feeling” to exercises covering string skipping, sweep picking, and intervallic lines, among other shreddy techniques. The conceit works because Campese is not a pure shredder but, rather a guitarist with an acute sense of phrasing who is wont to play really, really fast.