There's nothing sweeter to the ear or more satisfying to play than fingerstyle blues guitar. Pick up that old acoustic, play a few bars of a Muddy Waters tune and watch faces light up immediately. As popular music is rooted to the blues, blues is rooted to the original fingerstyle techniques of pioneers Robert Johnson, Big Bill, Leadbelly, Lightning Hopkins, Blind Lemon and many others. Contemporaries Ry Cooder, John Hammond, Leo Kotke, Chet Atkins and and a truckload of others keep this rare art form alive and very well.
Less is more when it comes to fingerstyle blues. No brain-twisting theory to master. Just a few basic chords and open tunings to learn. And the fingerpicking techniques are a snap for any player to pick up even hard-core flatpickers. So why such a mystery for so many players? Because effective fingerstyle blues instruction is real scarce. And that was our inspiration to produce the 60-Day Fingerstyle Blues Camp 8-CD Collection. Ah, but first we had to find the best fingerstyle blues instruction on the planet ...
Actually,
sourcing
top fingerstyle blues instruction was slam-dunk easy. Three words: Acoustic Guitar
Workshop! We've been working with them for quite a few years now and their
individual lessons are always in TrueFire's top rankings. Rick Payne and Steve Elliot formed a magical symbiosis known the world over as The Acoustic Guitar
Workshop, a world-class acoustic guitar web
site based in
England.
Rick's waters run deep -- world renown master of the fingerstyle form, brilliant composer, and possesses an uncanny ability to breakdown and communicate the essential elements of the style. Steve Elliot, recently hailed as "British Master of The Blues" is also a very successful songwriter and the founder of the Acoustic Guitar Workshop. They've published three highly praised fingerstyle blues courses and five CDs worth of classic and original fingerstyle blues tunes. This 8-CD collection features all three interactive CD courses and all five audio CDs.
This study
program is straightforward and very effective. Work through each of the three courses
sequentially: Fingerstyle Blues Guitar I, Fingerstyle Blues Guitar II and
then Acoustic Slide Guitar. Take on one chapter at a time for at least an hour a day. You'll
quickly learn to master the tunings, fingerpicking styles and techniques
of fingerstyle blues and acoustic slide guitar. Along the way, you'll add
a set's worth of solo fingerstyle tunes to perk up your repertoire. No
acoustic guitar? No sweat. Electric's just fine my fine-feathered
shred-heads (just turn the damn distortion off for a few minutes a day,
will ya?!).
But here's the trick - give your regular play list a break and keep the five audio CDs cranked and playing in your car, walkman, PC and home stereo until you hear the material in your sleep. This will make the relatively simple techniques you'll learn come to life on your fingertips, before your very ears.
The course is formatted in MP3 (audio), PDF (tab) and Power Tab — which allows you to "see" and "hear" tab played out at any tempo in perfect pitch. The collection is packaged on 8 CDs and features an interactive manual and a free full version of Power Tab software (Windows only).
If you've got intermediate skills and are willing to devote 60 days learning and listening to this course -- you'll be well on your way to becoming a monster fingerstyle blues player.
Rick Payne shares a few words ...
"As an eager student of the acoustic guitar, I have always been interested in discovering the mechanics of playing different styles. The blues and ragtime had me reeling to work out how something so simple as a few chords thrown together, could be so dammed difficult. I had been through loads of normal books on fingerstyle but couldn't find the essence of simplicity that the playing of Muddy Waters or Big Bill Broonzy conjured up. It was frustrating. I found I could play all kinds of bluesy instrumentals but lacked what I felt was real blues.
As all good things come to pass, I finally had my eureka a few years down the line. I was listening to an album by Lightening Hopkins and was amazed that all I was hearing was a four beat boom on the bass strings and an occasional ting on the top. Of course, there were other things happening - a pick here and a pick there - but the essence was there in that rhythmic, 'boom, boom, boom, boom'. From then on, I could hear the same in all the great players - Broonzy, Johnson, etc. etc. I started from that four beat pattern and took it from there. It's all a simple thing really. The hardest part is to train your self to be simple and be clear about the bottom line. All the other elements in the playing will fit together easily.
So, these sessions that I share with
you, are part of my own journey of discovery in the blues. Hopefully
they'll become part of yours too."
