Derryl Gabel is an awesome player, teacher and person

In November 2015 I bought Derryl Gabel’s Ultimate Virtuosity Mega Pack on DVD and digital download.

For several years before, I had been focused on transcribing players I admire to understand their phrasing. When it came to Allan Holdsworth, one of my absolute favourite players, this was difficult. I had no basis to understand where the phrasing came from.

I came across some video samples of Derryl’s “Outside Secrets” courses. It was clear to me that Derryl had a deep understanding of Allan’s phrasing, and had been able to incorporate that understanding into his own style, without merely becoming a mimic or a clone. It seemed that my goal had once been Derryl’s goal, and that he had achieved it. Moreoever, Derryl can teach.

Some of his other series addressed topics I was trying to further my understanding of and include in my playing. I decided to buy the Mega Pack.

I was not disappointed. Derryl’s video courses are excellent.

In November of 2017, I had a hard drive fail and I lost a lot of data, including the Mega Pack downloads. I could have ripped the DVDs myself to recover the digital versions, but that would have been a long, time consuming process. I sent Derryl an email asking if he’d be willing to send me new links to the courses I had bought. I only wanted what I’d lost, not anything that he had added to the collection since.

Derryl was kind enough to share new download links. Derryl, however, went much further. Derryl gave me full streaming access to his teaching platform on Teachable, including several courses that were not originally included in the Mega Pack.

I was very grateful, and I asked if I could leave a review anywhere to thank him. Derryl suggested a small donation for the upgrade. I felt he deserved it, but my girlfriend and I were both recently unemployed and money was a little tight at the time. Derryl did this good thing for me without expecting anything in return, and I decided I would send a donation in future when I was more financially secure.

Recently, I’ve been re-watching some of Derryl’s videos. I remembered what he had done for me.

This morning, I decided to send him a donation and an email to thank him again. I asked for nothing but a confirmation that he had received my donation.

A little while later, I received notifications that I had been given access to some courses that Derryl had released since I had last been in contact with him.

Derryl Gabel is an awesome player, teacher and person.

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He’s got some cool 3-1-3 videos, which is something I have not been able to get down yet but I feel would be a game changer for me

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3-1-3 is a cool concept for pentatonics. I have a good amount of facility with 2-note per string pentatonics from playing Eric Johnson and Shawn Lane pentatonic licks, but Derryl’s pentatonic ideas have definitely helped take my pentatonic in different directions, particularly in developing ideas that are amenable to legato or economy picking.

what helped you get better for the 3-1-3 minor pentatonics? Major is easy because barely any stretch. The minor gets tricky. Do you pick every note and economy or just the first note and legato? I find it difficult to turn around on the D string if starting from the low E. If i hit the 1 note on the G string it’s much easier to turn around for legato

Depends on context. I’m used to playing a lot of stretchy licks so 3-1-3 for minor pentatonics is reasonably comfortable.

I don’t think of 3-1-3 as a rule I have to follow, I see it as an organisational tool I can take advantage of where it’s appropriate.

You can use swybrid picking to solve this. Try

|----------------------------|
|----------------------------|
|----------------------------|
|----------5-7-10-7-5--------|
|--------7------------7------|
|-5-8-10----------------10-8-|
  u d u  m r d u  d u u u  d 

This was a kind of awkward to chunk. I can count it as two sixes or three fours. It feels weird as four threes.

What helped you develop or advance your 2 note pentatonics? I sometimes like to test my speed just going across the classic minor pentatonic box but 2 notes per string is challenging for me. I cant really use an upwards escape when going from the high to low strings, i actually have to reverse my wrist motion completely sometimes

I got Derryl’s Fretboard Intensive Course on Truefire, and it’s an excellent left hand workout! I especially like his concepts of diagonal and zigzag rolling shifts in legato sequences.

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I wasn’t aware he had a TrueFire course. His FIT program was also part of the Mega Pack and is available on his teachable and flatfiv where he has most of his content.

I just checked TrueFire and the FIT program was on a flash sale and was less than $11. I bought it again to support Derryl and for the TrueFire functions.

Derryl has a monstrous fretting hand. His command of Gambale style picking licks is also scary.

Yes, great ideas that really help with fretboard visualisation and help to develop a legato technique for playing melodic lines. His “Cool Legato Phrases” course have a lot of interesting vocabulary ideas too.

I am glad you suggested checking this guy out because honestly the little excerpts that he posts as teasers are kind of terrible as demonstrations of what is in the pack imo. However, the actual content is awesome!

Like I mentioned before, my goal at the moment is just to develop super aggressive strict alternate picking chops so Im exploring this as a fun little “seeing how the other half lives” and I’m definitely enjoying it

In particular, using some of the left hand stuff you taught me combined with his idea of turning pentatonics into 3nps patterns is giving me some very cool results

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