Snap this one up! Scott Ainslies' Guitar instructional in the Mississippi Delta blues techniques of Robert Johnson is the best of its kind that I have reviewed thus far in my collection.
With high probability of knowledge transfer. As is the case here in standard tuning for 4 songs.
Scott actually teaches us as opposed to just performing for us 7 Robert Johnson songs.
What with a couple hundred years of lute and traditional written music and guitar tab when we get to the delta blues we enter uncharted (pun intended) territory.
Sure there is tab but it doesn't quite do it does it? Nuance is hard to convey.
However Scott wire frames for us, fairly decently, the fret board side of it, better than anyone else I have seen and what's more four of the songs are in standard tuning.
Still I have issues, small ones to be sure, with the camera angle. We need to see both hands at all times. Do not pull into the artists face - we didn't buy this to see his face we bought it to see his hands, both of them. Don't show me one hand when you should be showing me 2.
Lonnie Johnson and then Robert Johnson, when you think about it, established the 'blues time' used and boogied to today just listen to "Sweet Home Chicago".
For me the hardest part of this style is keeping the beat steady and the finger picking aspect and well maybe the slide too if you want to get technical. Trying to have some fun with this stuff is the key even though some the songs content are catatonic-suicidal-made a pact with the devil for lyrics.
R. J. Delta Blues Guitar Technique Page One | Page Two | Page Three
Fortune favors the prepared mind.
~ Louis Pasteur