At start up initially there is a short period where you want to be in standard tuning and for latter demonstrations open D and A. He uses a thumb pick and finger pick here and you will quickly encounter slide guitar.
So we start out with tuning the guitar to standard tuning and move on to a call and response Q and A of where the Chicago blues came from which is country blues including delta blues. John recalls a record that blew him away a Folkways sampler LP The Country Blues as seminal. Lightning Hopkins was accessible in that he often plays in normal tuning in the key of E. John shows us some country work at the open E position or position 1 which he slides up to box 2 and 'stuff'. He then goes on to talk about his early slide influences like Robert Johnson and how he finally settled on 11/16th as a socket wrench that fit his finger for his slide work.
We cut to a performance piece, the refreshingly sexplicit "Drop Down Momma" and then John shows us some Elmore James slide technique in the key of D, I know because I just reached for the well spoken pamphlet. Here is the best turnaround so far in all the max axe I have reviewed so far.
John shows us some more of his delta blues influences but he doesn't exactly teach them to us - he preforms them. He discusses how hard it is to sing and play guitar at the same time keeping two lines going. Then he show us his 12 string blues technique. After that he plays some rack harmonica and tips us to 'cross harp' or the fact that if you have an A harmonica the guitar should be playing in the key of E. He sites Jimmy Reed as his main harmonica influence.
If you like John Hammond you will learn quite a bit from this but if you don't know anything about open tunings don't expect to learn the fundamentals here. This will refine your previous knowledge.
I have another almost twice as long John Hammond Guitar Instructional DVD you should check out too.
It is never too late to be what you might have been. – George Eliot