Help looking for help with instructional matierials

CJ440 · #1 September 27th, 2005

Hey folks , new here, just got a dean reso (chrome g) w pickups. love it!I think I need to put heavier strings on though. came stock w/10's. Been playing 25 years (blues/rock/punk/) Moving along ok doin'slide about 1 year, learning from folks like J.winter, d.allman, keb mo, son house,sonny landreth and HD taylor. If I wanted to get DEEP into this style, which I think I may. Are the Brozman books/CD's the be all and end all, I mean is there enough usable licks on there to keep me busy? also, in this series is there any sections on finger picking? jUST my opinion but I'd like my style to evolve, incorporating fingerpicking with the slide , seems more interesting to me at least. I appreciate all help!

Frankenstrat2 · #2 September 27th, 2005

IMO, Brozman is a great instructional video. Get the DVD with just Vol II and III. You can probably skip vol I
I've seen many of the popular slide instructional videos and none that I recall get too deep into fingerpicking- more about palm muting, banjo rolls, that kind of thing.
I wonder if you'd do better purely studying fingerpicking and then applying that to slide.
barry

CJ440 · #3 September 30th, 2005

Ya know, I thought of that myself, it's like studying Karate and Tap Dancing at the same time, but I'm finding alot of fingerpicking techniques really are helping me to execute certain slide moves in a more sensible and logical way, so, I'll just continue this way til I hit an obstacle that forces me to choose which style I REALLY want to pursue. In the meantime, I guess I'll just get the Brozman discs.

I read my previous post and realized how arrogant I sounded. "Is there enough to keep me busy...." " Uh..Yes there is, Idiot, Brozman's Dog knows more about slide than You Do! " Sheesh, I did'nt mean to come across that way. Anyhow, Thanks for the quick response and the help!

Frankenstrat2 · #4 September 30th, 2005

CJ
I did not think that your reply sounded arrogant. I would assume that anyone who has played guitar for 25 years and has already been playing slide for a year copping licks from your list of influences should be a bit beyond the fundamentals offered on many of the available beginner's level videos.
I hear you about the fingerpicking vs slide dilemma.
In my experience a natural evolution of playing slide is to want to develop a cleaner style, which usually involves damping adjacent strings with the picking hand. Eventually this will force you into doing a lot of fingerpicking just because the flatpick style works against muting adjacent strings with your right hand. Many players get into that hybrid thing cupping the pick in your palm when you need to fingerpick. For me its evolved into all fingerpicking when I'm playing slide. But I suspect that fingerpicking for slide is very different than traditional fingerpicking because of the damping thing.
Its not something I think about much, its something we probably learn to do because....we have to.

Johnny Guitar · #5 October 1st, 2005

Hi CJ,

I'm in a very similar situation as you: playing guitar a long time (and playing slide very poorly for a long time) and only recently starting to sound OK at slide.

With that introduction, I believe the single best investment I made for playing slide was the three disc Brozman set (which I bought while Homespun was having a discount sale) -- well worth it. The second best investment would be a guitar set up as a slide instrument (high enough action and thicker strings).

And again, I'm in a similar situation to you as to not having many fingerpicking skills. I did get a DVD from Homespun called Essential Exercises for Fingerstyle Guitar. It does have a number of rudimentary excercises for begining fingerpickers (alternate thumb, index, thumb, index,... -- now thumb, middle, thumb, middle,...) and I have found that useful as those kinds of excercises didn't really occur to me. You might be smarter than me though, so I can't reccommed it as highly as the Brozman DVDs.

Regarding fingerpicking, I agree with everything that Barry says. I think one of my biggest detrements to my slide playing was wanting to use the flat pick in some way while using a couple of my fingers. My playing greatly improved around the same time as I put down the pick while playing slide. This had been recommended by EVERYONE, and I noticed that all the slide players I saw in concert and on DVDs were all playing with their fingers or fingerpicks.

John