Customer Reviews

Bluegrass Guitar Classics: 22 Carter-Style Solos

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is a compilation of flatpicking guitar solos, arranged in a "Carter" style (after that of Maybelle Carter of the renowned Carter Family). It has songs as "Jesse James, "Down Under," "John Henry" and many others. The Carter method uses single notes followed by chords which plays not just the melody, but the harmony, too. This is a very practical method of playing, especially if you're just one player. You can, essentially, play both parts at once. This book is a must for any flatpicker.

I own several bluegrass and flatpicking guitar books. Bluegrass Guitar Classics is my favorite, and it's also the least expensive. The song selection is great and the arrangements are simple enough for a beginner. I've been playing for four months and I learned to play Wildwood Flower and Down in the Willow Garden over a weekend. The book is a great introduction to Carter style guitar. The tab is clear and easy to read, unlike other books I own. This may be the vest $7.95 I've ever spent.

This book is an excellent buy for the money and contains some of the most important traditional Bluegrass songs in both standard musical notation and guitar tablature.

I basically agree with the positive reviews. I give it 4 rather than 5 stars because the arrangements aren't always my favorite. But that's no big deal. It helps to have different arrangements of the same song, it helps you develop your sense of what you like, and the arrangements here are still good and will add to your repertoire and help you develop your skills. But I really wrote this review to clarify something in the negative review which is simply off-base. It claims, for instance, that Walkin' Cane doubles its speed after 4 bars. I can see how someone who was just looking at the tablature and ignoring the standard notation might get confused and think that there's a problem here, but the standard notation is there for a reason even if you don't read the notes from it: it tells you how long to hold notes. The arrangement mixes quarter notes and eighth notes, as all good arrangements of old-time, country and bluegrass music do. More notes in the tab just means there are some eighth notes thrown in. You play faster at those points, but the tempo stays the same. An arrangement in all quarter notes, unless it's for beginners, would be boring. Don't be discouraged by the bad review, this is a good book and a great deal.

As someone who has played guitar for a while, I am always "trying" to explore and get "just a little bit better. this book is pretty basic for Bluegrass and that is what I needed. It's all fun to me and better I should be doing this rather then drinking to excess and being a public nuisance. The CD is filled with examples and, I think, done well. The tab is clear and not too difficult. The key is to listen to the CD often until the sounds are in your head and then just keep hammering away (no pun). I would recommend this book for someone who has an interest in Bluegrass no matter what your level is.

I would recommend this book to people who have practiced through Mark Hanson's "Travis Picking", "Alternating Bass Fingerpicking Style" or any other fingerpicking tutorial (see my 'listomania'). Songs are quite easy, actually easier than exercises in the above mentioned Hanson's books.

You'll need to know the basics and have cracked alternate picking to play these. (Or play them real slow with any picking actually.) A great book to have alongside Rus Barenbergs book Teach Yourself Bluegrass Guitar or Steve Kaufman's Mel Bay Complete Flatpicking Guitar Book.

These are mostly Carter Style pices so you'll want Russ Barenberg's Russ Barenberg Teaches 20 Bluegrass Guitar Solos: Repertoire Tunes for Intermediate Players (Listen & Learn) to practice your fiddle tunes as well. But hey, these books don't cost much more than a guitar magazine, so they are great value for money and you'll be learning proper, repetoire songs rather than nursery tunes and old classical pieces out of copyright.

These four books are my favourites for teaching flatpicking basics. Then we all move on to Steve Kaufman's Bluegrass Guitar Solos That Every Parking Lot Picker Should Know (Series 1) 6 CD (Homespun Learning Discs) that Steve recommends, if you speak to him personally about what follows the material for learning the basics. This is because the 'Parking Lot' series have three levels of playing ability in them which makes it easy for the beginner to access the simple tune and then work up to the higher levels of complexity and speed.

Obiously the other reviewers have not bothered to try playing any of the songs in this book (or don't own it). Nor have they bothered to even open this book, 7 songs that I've tried so far are not fininshed ( for example; Big Rock candy mountain only has 8 bars, Hand me down my walking cane, doubles its speed at bar 4, one page long, 30 seconds of lyrics...It's not finished) . 4 have no words at all, tab is very badly written, not finished, chords not where they belong. What's the point of saying lyrics by... but not having any. No matter what the song is in, the tab is pretty much the same,
and Mabelle was not a flat picker, Maybelle used a thumbpick for the bass note and her index finger for the rhythmic strums.
This is easilly overpriced by $7.00.
If you like re-writing your song books, looking up the lyrics on the net, or just figure on putting this on your coffee table. Then this book is for you.