Topic: Books for learnin'

[Zischkale]

Old-time banjo player who's wanting to beef up his guitar skills. In addition to listening to plenty of Mississippi John Hurt and Dave Van Ronk and Elizabeth Cotten and John Fahey, I've been trying to teach myself fingerpicking by using Ken Perlman's Fingerstyle Guitar.

So far so good, the picking is feeling natural and I'm confident with many of the arrangements in the book--it'll be a long while before I've gotten around to nailing those rags, so in the meantime I'm wanting to look for some other good instructions, more blues-oriented stuff.

Do y'all have any good recommendations for instructional books? What're some books or authors to generally avoid?

[Blues Vintage]

Beginning Fingerstyle Blues Guitar - Berle and Galbo.

Best instructional book I ever used.

[Stuart]

Why only books?

[Zischkale]

Why only books?

Fair enough! I like to have the book to get my eyes off a computer screen for awhile, and to give me a starting-off point as far as where my fingers need to go while I listen to a recording to refine my playing.

But I'll take any recommendations--if there are any solid teachers with videos online, or DVDs, etc.

[Stuart]

Yeah, I know what you mean. However, I look at it all as information about how to play. The music is primary, but as most of us can attest to from experience, one can spend a lot of time trying to "reinvent the flat tire," as the old joke goes--using some unusual fingering and/or tuning, when getting the correct answer right off the bat would have saved a lot of time and trouble. (But it still is useful to "struggle" when learning, IMHO--you just don't want to spend too much time going down blind alleys.)

Since you mentioned John Fahey, here are a few links that might be helpful:

http://delta-slider.blogspot.com/

http://johnfahey.com/

www.divshare.com/direct/25217455-530.pdf

The PDF file is 334 pages of TAB.

I started playing guitar in 1959 and fingerstyle several years later. There wasn't much available then, so we either learned from someone and/or tried to figure it out ourselves off of records. So much has become available and accessible since those days that it's hard to say where to start, especially for someone like me doesn't have first hand experience learning from the basic intro material that's now available. Maybe the thing to do is to also start with music you want to eventually  be able to play. It may seem out of reach, but you'll definitely learn something and in time hopefully get to where you want to be.

[Johnm]

Hello Zischkale,
I don't know if you are interested in learning to play Country Blues guitar specifically, but if you are, I would recommend my book, "John Miller's Country Blues Guitar Collection".  This thread provides a lot of information on it, http://weeniecampbell.com/yabbse/index.php?topic=8487.0 , and also has links to sites where you can order the book.
All best,
Johnm

[Blues Vintage]

www.divshare.com/direct/25217455-530.pdf

The PDF file is 334 pages of TAB.

What TAB book is this Stuart? The link is down

[Zischkale]

Yeah, I know what you mean. However, I look at it all as information about how to play. The music is primary, but as most of us can attest to from experience, one can spend a lot of time trying to "reinvent the flat tire," as the old joke goes--using some unusual fingering and/or tuning, when getting the correct answer right off the bat would have saved a lot of time and trouble. (But it still is useful to "struggle" when learning, IMHO--you just don't want to spend too much time going down blind alleys.)

Since you mentioned John Fahey, here are a few links that might be helpful:

http://delta-slider.blogspot.com/

http://johnfahey.com/

www.divshare.com/direct/25217455-530.pdf

The PDF file is 334 pages of TAB.

I started playing guitar in 1959 and fingerstyle several years later. There wasn't much available then, so we either learned from someone and/or tried to figure it out ourselves off of records. So much has become available and accessible since those days that it's hard to say where to start, especially for someone like me doesn't have first hand experience learning from the basic intro material that's now available. Maybe the thing to do is to also start with music you want to eventually  be able to play. It may seem out of reach, but you'll definitely learn something and in time hopefully get to where you want to be.

Thank you all kindly for the links, looks like a great place to start. Familiar with some of the names, but far more are new to me, which means I'll be expanding my listening horizons as well!

Stuart--I have nothing but respect for the generation that learned from LP's! I enjoy listening to vinyl records, but can't imagine learning a brief passage of music from them, that had to be an enormous hassle (but probably rewarding once you figured a particular lick out). I don't consider it cheating to stand on the shoulders of giants, as long you respect the work done by 'em -- learning from tab hasn't stopped me from learning by ear the stuff that isn't available (I've been trying real hard to get down what banjo player Dink Roberts does, and the only way to do it is to listen to the little one minute fragments they recorded of him, many times over.

Thank you for the John Fahey links -- I'd love to take a stab at Wine and Roses! It's amazing that this material is made available for free--it's the beauty of the internet, bringing all this information together. There's a similar site for Nick Drake, providing tablature for basically everything he ever recorded. The divshare link above doesn't work--but the the John Fahey site is plenty to start with!

Johnm--many new names to me there, but I'd love to learn more John Hurt, and it would be great to hear more Furry Lewis. There's a great Blind Blake song arranged for the Ken Perlman fingerstyle book. The author of that book seems to have an insane amount of output--is it all high quality stuff?

harry--looks like a good primer for me after this Ken Perlman book -- not as many song arrangements as I'd like, but looks like a highly recommended guide!

[Stuart]

www.divshare.com/direct/25217455-530.pdf

The divshare link above doesn't work...

The hosting server may be shaky--try it again later and if it doesn't work, send me a PM (Personal Message). It's a direct PDF download--at least for me, it was.

I don't think that making use of the available resources is cheating in any way. They merely make learning more efficient and effective. The point regarding "struggle" is to train your ear so that you can figure out songs that are not available as transcriptions, lessons, in instruction books, etc. John has a video lesson that addresses this.

One of the things we do here is try to bring to fore music and musicians that are underrepresented. Back in the 60s there were only a handful of reissue labels and as good as they were, what was available then didn't approach what is readily available today. In addition to being lovers of this great music and musicians, some of us also make contributions as "custodians of culture" in the form of lyrical transcriptions, keys and tunings for particular songs, etc. Today's struggling student is tomorrow's contributor.

[Stuart]

What TAB book is this Stuart? The link is down

Hi Harry:

I think that it's a collection of TAB from various sources, primarily the JohnFahey.com site--but I haven't attempted to trace anything back to its specific source. As it's available for download, I've attached it to my previous reply to Zischkale.

[Zischkale]

What TAB book is this Stuart? The link is down

Hi Harry:

I think that it's a collection of TAB from various sources, primarily the JohnFahey.com site--but I haven't attempted to trace anything back to its specific source. As it's available for download, I've attached it to my previous reply to Zischkale.

Thanks for uploading -- the Wine and Roses tab looks spot-on at first glance!

[EddieD]

Stefan Grossman's Guitar Workshop is a great place to get lessons from. I don't know if you were looking for free lessons or not. The lessons are worth the money. There is plenty of lessons for Mississippi John Hurt. Several different books and video lessons. http://www.guitarvideos.com/

They have lessons for everyone you mentioned and many more.

[Blues Vintage]

Stefan Grossman's Guitar Workshop is a great place to get lessons from. I don't know if you were looking for free lessons or not. The lessons are worth the money. There is plenty of lessons for Mississippi John Hurt. Several different books and video lessons. http://www.guitarvideos.com/

They have lessons for everyone you mentioned and many more.

I might add that you can download the Mississippi John Hurt TAB (vol 1. and 2.) for free at the Grossman site.

[EddieD]

Indeed you can! I was very glad to find this out. I don't really need instruction for Mississippi John Hurt these days. But having accurate tabs for reference is great.

[Zischkale]

Stefan Grossman's Guitar Workshop is a great place to get lessons from. I don't know if you were looking for free lessons or not. The lessons are worth the money. There is plenty of lessons for Mississippi John Hurt. Several different books and video lessons. http://www.guitarvideos.com/

They have lessons for everyone you mentioned and many more.

I might add that you can download the Mississippi John Hurt TAB (vol 1. and 2.) for free at the Grossman site.

Thanks for the tip! Though I can't quite figure if it's meant as sample or is being offered for free by mistake! At a quick glance looks solid, if it's indicative of the other tab books looks like a wealth of great (and sorta pricey) information on this site.