Primarily, I've been a guitar player most of my life, steel came lately, and Teles are my favorite. There are really two issues here.
The first is basic guitar technique. There are so many fine books and videos out there it's hard to recommend just one. I like "The Wolf Marshall Guitar Method, with CD included". The
Basics series comes in three volumes, and really covers the fundamentals for most styles. This is what I got for my kid when starting guitar after a few years of classical piano. This series is clear and methodical, starts from the beginning, but is not dumbed-down, IMO. Marshall is known primarily as a rock player, but he can play/teach about anything, I think. It should be possible to find and take a look at this in a local music store, certainly is here in State College.</p>
The second relates to how you're going to play. For guitar, I use a flatpick and fingerpicks on middle and ring fingers. If you want to try that approach, I recommend James Burton's Hot Licks video. He uses the flatpick and just the middle fingerpick, but you get the idea. He starts out with the Susie Q riff and moves from there to lay out his chicken pickin' style. His tone is so good, and runs the limit from his red 50s to paisley 60s to 80s JB signature model.</p>
That's not the only way to do this of course. Brent Mason has a good Hot Licks video out on the thumbpick and fingers approach. I like the Hot Licks country guitar series in general. Arlen Roth in particular lays things out very clearly. Danny Gatton, Ray Flacke, Albert Lee, all cool, though I don't see Ray's and Alberts videos listed anymore. Descriptions are here:
http://www.hotlicks.com/countryguitar.htm</p>
There are tons of other instructional materials out there. Nothing against the old Mel Bay series, but I would have given my eye teeth for the Wolf Marshall and Hot Licks videos when I started out. I agree, tdpri is cool.</p>
<font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Marty Pollard on 10 June 2005 at 07:52 AM.]</p></FONT>
