New Orleans Fingerstyle Blues Guitar features a mix of New Orleans-flavored fingerstyle guitar tunes. Cory Seznec takes you through songs such as Lookin' For A Woman and High Society inspired by the virtuosic playing of Snooks Eaglin, a laid back Latin rumba style version of Corrina, Corrina, a punchy brass band tinged, harmonically interesting rendition of the gospel tune Give Me Dat Ol' Time Religion, and an arrangement of the piano prodigy James Booker's scorching tune Classified.

The goal of the lesson is to help develop different right hand rhythmic techniques - rumba style, thumb dragging, bass movement, flamenco-esque strumming; and help the player develop passing chords and inversions, incorporate classic bluesy, New Orleanian ornamentation, and generally spice up left hand techniques. Within each song Cory breaks everything down and slowly walks the player through the arrangement. For any guitarist looking to branch out and try a new "feel"!

A detailed tab/music booklet is included as a PDF file on the DVD. Each tune is taught phrase by phrase and played slowly on a split-screen.

Titles include: Lookin' For A Woman, High Society, Corrina, Corrina, Give Me Dat Ol' Time Religion and Classified

113 minutes - Level 3 - Detailed tab/music PDF file on the DVD

Review: Well here's a new teacher from Guitar Workshop with some really fresh approaches to fingerstyle Blues guitar! The syncopation and Rumba groove underpinning so much of the great New Orleans music is explored to great effect on ‚ "Corinna, Corinna‚" and ‚ "Looking For A Woman," and Seznec also brings Ragtime Jazz into a couple other tunes plus he's also adapted one of brilliant pianist James Booker's pieces to guitar.

Five different tunes are taught, things that you can use to amaze yourself and your own audiences, and the techniques and chord inversions shown can also creep into your own compositions and arrangements. As is always the case with these DVD courses, there is a file with tablature showing exactly where each note is fingered on the neck, and once Cory plays the pieces, he breaks them down into sections teaching each part, then playing them back slowly with two cameras on his hands. Even a non- player could enjoy just playing through the performance segments as these are nice pieces of music, and in fact there's another unnamed one he plays while the credits roll! Guitar Workshop DOES have a few DVDs that are just performance without teaching, but none I know of yet on Cory Seznec - something to look forward to! Recommended to any fingerstyle guitarist and especially to those who love that New Orleans sound. - Blue Suede News

Review: Franco-American musician Cory Seznec plays blues, early jazz, gospel and African music. Seznec's focus on complex rhythms and jazz chording should greatly interest intermediate and advanced fingerstyle guitarists. He presents the first tune, "Corrina, Corrina", as a rumba, which will challenge guitarists who favor solid 4/4 time. Learning to sing over his bass line will give the student a foundation in playing polyrhythmically - likewise the treble lines in the guitar breaks. Snooks Eaglin's "Lookin' For A Woman" delves further into rumba, including a triplet accent borrowed from New Orleans snare drum technique - think of Albert King's version of "Crosscut Saw", played solo. He uses a rubato approach for "Give Me Dat Ol' Time Religion", based on a published piano arrangement by J. Rosamond Johnson. Seznec's accompaniment to the vocal resembles a Gary Davis gospel arrangement, with melody played in unison with the voice, but the guitar breaks are much jazzier. Guitarists who absorb the ideas introduced here will have a good basis for creating their own bluesy, reflective arrangements. "Classified", inspired by the playing of pianist James Booker, has a light-hearted, danceable feel. The final tune, "High Society", comes from a 1961 recording by Snooks Eaglin, with Seznec adding some riffs from Blind Blake's "Blake's Breakdown" for good measure. This lesson follows Stefan Grossman's established format: full performance of a tune, discussion and demonstration of distinct sections, then a split screen run-through of the segment at a slow tempo. The download and dvd comes with a 31-page booklet of transcriptions in standard notation and tablature. Seznec progresses logically from simple to more complex rhythmic concepts throughout the lesson, so I recommend following the segments sequentially. It will take guitarists some time to master the techniques shown here, but the payoffs are greater rhythmic and harmonic facility that's applicable in many settings. – Patrick Ragains/Minor 7th

Review: Looking to hip-up your traditional repertoire? Meet cool cat Cory Seznec. He-along with other fresh faces like Dom Flemons, Erin Harpe and Alberto Lombardi-is infusing Stefan Grossman's Guitar Workshop faculty with young blood. And his "New Orleans Fingerstyle Blues Guitar" wastes no time pumping that oxygenated zing into your strings. Under Seznec's plan, the venerable earworm "Corrina, Corrina" slyly dips and stumbles its way past the pitfall of becoming the millionth rehash. His is the hippest overhaul you'll ever hear, stemming from the right-hand thumb locking down a rumba groove while the left hand engages in string rolls and bluesy flourishes-all without hindering the singalong chorus. "Lookin' for a Woman" also has rumba on its mind and fingers, likewise elevating the right hand into as much a star as is the left. Figuring heavily into that attack is the design of hometown bluesman Snooks Eaglin, right down to his flair for New Orleans flamenco. "High Society," the jazz standard upon which Eaglin built his reputation for blistered solos, remains just as imaginatively amphetamined. "Classified" converts the pianistics of James Booker, another local legend, into Blind Blake thumb drags and neck-long string strikes meant to flash like a keyboard glissando. And as for just how deeply rooted this lesson is: Seznec creatively springboards "Give Me Dat Ol' Time Religion" from an arrangement no younger than 92 years old. – Dennis Rozanski/Blues Rag