Beyond Basics: Acoustic Slide Guitar, Book & Online Audio

OK, I side with the guy who studied with Keith Wyatt at MI. Keith knows this subject like the back of his hand, and has a nice teaching tempo and style. I thought this was a great intro into slide guitar playing in general and a good jumping off point to actually find further instruction and put it all together or start listening to songs and picking things up yourself if you have any ear.The book gets you going with some simple phrases, which is the important part, in std tuning. It quickly goes to open G tuning, which I personally think is the best tuning to start playing and learning in. After adding some fairly easy phrases, there is a bit of a jump in skill level to get the full songs down that he has. In that case I think its about patience, going over each part little by little and really owning what you learn, not zipping through things. Then he ends up touching on open D tuning too, so its a great overview of standard blues tunings. If you want to translate to electric guitar, just tune to open A or E.The book does not have that many full "song" examples, or transcriptions of Robert Johnson songs, true, but the short song examples in there are full of great ideas you can take with you. And if you can master the longer example he has at the end of the book, then you are well on your way to going the next step, like a Bob Brozman or Stefan Grossman DVD with actual songs.In summary I think this book is great for getting you started learning slide technique and at least getting a few basic licks under your fingers.

This book isn't in the same league as Keith's other books. The book is rather thin and when you think that a lot of it is instruction with the guitar in standard tuning(which no slide player uses because it is so limiting) there is not a lot of content. I received more knowledge by simply looking at sheet music and tab from the masters like Son House, etc.

I also disagree with the first reviewer. Blues is not about learning scales and modes. It's about listening, which is about what most of us (who pick up an instrument) do for the very first time or any time as a matter of fact. I happened to study under Keith Wyatt for a year at Musician's Institute in Hollywood California and let me tell you, in my whole life I have never seen a more fluent guitar player and musician. Words cannot explain how awsome this guy is in playing the blues. Trust me, if your curious about slide guitar, Keith Wyatt is the best place to start. Not only is he cool musician and blues player but he also a great teacher... I should know and you will too. Peace Out! Daniel

To me, this book does not take a good approach to teaching slide. Im a guitar player wanting to play slide and I grabbed this book/cd off the rack. It doesnt really seem like this book is trying to start you from the ground up by teaching easy techniques then putting them together. It just kind of gives you some tab for an exercise, a track on the CD, the teacher talks while playing some neat sounding stuff, but never tells you HOW to do it. Sure, the tab is there, but give me some more guidance dude. Not much technique is ever given aside from the absolute basics. From there the book jumps to harder licks without giving enough guidance.Two Thumbs Down on this one.

A lot of talk but no real teaching involved. Before you know it, he is 2 or 3 lessons into it and you're left wondering what just happened. I would not recommend this to anyone.

One of many excellent products by guitar teacher Keith Wyatt. The dvd and book go together which is needed in this style as it is not always clear what actual fret is being played. The book shows the tablature.

Could have been bigger