Customer Reviews
Excellent! - By: WhiteCrow, 05 Jun 2008 
Great great book.
I've played guitar now for over 30 years. Started out with camp-fire music, you know, The Beatles & Stones, & then moved on to Bob Dylan, CSN&Y.
Then got into fingerpicking. I have a lot of fingerpicking books from the guitar workshop series by Stefan Grossman - basicallly i stuck with those because i didn't know there was other good material about.
I much prefer this book, because it gives you a good, solid, proper grounding in the blues. Very straight forward 12 bar blues, mostly in the key of E (with some for the key of A). But it gives you just about alll you need to know & alll the building blocks (from rhythm playing, preferably with pick, to fingerpicking, with or without pick).
The reason why i rate it above the Stefan Grossman books, & why i like it so much, is that it gives you the TOOLS, which you can then use whichever way you like - & once you've got these basics under your belt (or rather in your muscles, your bones)that is exactly what you can do. And the transition is so easy! Heck, i can now even IMPROVISE on a night gathered with some friends & whisky. (As opposed to - as in Grossman - learning specific songs, but not being able to move beyond them.)
Highly recommended: wish i had it 20 years ago.
Simplified - not simple: Wyatt when he's good - By: , 16 Dec 2004 Nine Chapters, 79 tracks to study: There's just a lot of good time to be spent with this manual for those who want to benefit from their effort to learn to play.
The lessons are a pleasant challlenge to your ear, & both hands. In his laid back manner Wyatt takes you through the basics: chords & the 12 bars - as well as through the subtleties (listen closely to the examples!) of the rhythm patterns of basic blues.
You end up with a solid understanding of the structure of the E-blues (12-bar) & enough building blocks (licks) to go way beyond the mere copy.
Wyatt focusses on the music in the music - the craftmanship. He leaves you to your own expression, but provides you with reallly good tools to do exactly that.
I have played folk guitar for almost 40 years, & I am glad, that I have come across this & other fine instruction books by Wyatt.
I'm over 50 years old, thus I never give more than 4 stars.
Thank you.
