Hot Licks for Bluegrass Guitar Book - Fingerstyle Guitar Book with Over 350 Bluegrass Licks - Guitar Tab Book with Trail-Offs, Crosspicking, Floating

Bluegrass is a deceptively challenging style of guitar to learn. The chords are simple, the songs are typically uncomplicated, and the lyrics are also likewise unadorned with fancy language. I have a lot of bluegrass "how to" books, and have learned/memorized tabs for fiddle tunes and songs, but none of these books clicked for me to be able to make good sounding leads, let alone innovate them in real time without sounding like "eighth note noodling in a scale". I think for many of us, the number of things vying for our focus/attention during bluegrass soloing is a challenge--and the more things that can be committed to habit the better. Orrin breaks it down and simplifies it so that you have the building blocks to solo effectively (relying on habits developed in the woodshed). I interpret his "not-so-hot" solos that use straight eighth notes as intentionally keeping it simple--encouraging you as the learner to develop your own "voice" with the guitar, whilst remaining true to the timing challenges of connecting phrases and licks together in a musical way. Intellectually, I can understand the circle of fifths, chord tones and passing notes, lead-in notes, etc., but have a hard time putting it to practice. This book provides a structure for practicing these skills in a simplified way in the bluegrass idiom. I think you should probably have a decent habit of alternating pick direction on eighth notes before you tackle this book. It assumes some familiarity with the concepts that are covered in more basic instructional books on flatpicking, so I would firmly place this in the Intermediate category. It is the right kind of challenging and the right kind of rewarding. Like all instructional music books, it benefits from being spiral bound--which most copy stores will do for you for a nominal fee. I'm by all means a perennial beginner/intermediate player--and this book is one of the few that I would undoubtedly replace if it was lost.

Good

This is by far the "meatiest" of the numerous guitar instruction books I've come across. Tons of licks and material here, and tons of good discussion about putting together bluegrass solos that's quite helpful. The only real downside is that some of the licks in here really aren't all that hot. In fact, i decided to buy the companion CD from the author, to see if I was somehow playing them wrong, and it turned out i wasn't. He even goes so far on the CD to admit that some of the licks aren't that hot - pretty funny. Anyway, I had a bit of a revelation while going through the book - it made me think, "hey, this is all absurd. I can come up with some better licks than this on my own." Since then, I realize that the licks that don't sound so hot still have their value, and it's worthwhile to get a bunch of different licks under your belt if you want to really fluently play bluegrass solos. The point is, this book got me to finally recognize and act on these crucial insights, which no other book did.

It's an old publication (1985), no CD, just standard notation and tab examples (that keeps it from being 5 stars or useful to many guitarists who just can't learn to read.... But it's very good as far as it goes, has oodles of 'licks' and standard bluegrass phrases, and the narrative is clear and easy to follow when it's time to discuss technique. I've played guitar since 1958, never bluegrass, but I think it could work well for all levels of players who can comfortably work through standard notation and/or tabs with or without a teacher. If not, you're limited to publications that give you recorded examples--I have several tutorials of that kind (bluegrass and other genres, too, I'm a die-hard collector) and have yet to find one that is better than pedestrian or is very useful to people who are much beyond beginners. This is a good, massive tome for those who can wade through it.

I am playing guitar and singing lead in a bluegrass band and I needed a resource to add licks and some solo transcriptions. I found this book to be a tremendous resource for this. The transcriptions of solos provided are accurate and the licks are not just scale runs but very melodic lines in the style of famous players like Tony Rice, Dan Crary, Mark OConnor and others. The floating section is especially good since it provides many licks in this open string style that brings out the resonant nature of the guitar. I play many styles of guitar professionally and have over 100 lick style books for guitar, violin, piano etc. on jazz, bluegrass, rock etc and this book is one of the very best. If you want the best resource for professional sounding licks you can use on gigs for acoustic guitar to sound like a bluegrass guitarist this is it. Buy it now!

Orin Starr is not only a National Flatpick Guitar Champion (Winfield, KS), he's also a fine writer, and he knows how to relate knowledge like this from HIS head to YOURS. If you're an intermediate player and love the challenge of playing this guitar style, get the book and a metronome, and start. Also learn as many fiddle tunes as possible. Some are in here, but the more the better - lots are online, and YouTube lessons teach many more. This book is even put together (bound) well, and won't fall apart. The spine is strong, the pages high quality, the print vivid, and the covers handsome. I wish I'd had this when I began! Get yourself a copy of this good book if you're serious about learning.

Though the book is very well writen it could use a CD with the songs and licks for those of us who may never have heard them before.

This is a great book with both tab and notation. The part that I liked the best was the chapter on "Closed Licks", which went through the patterns of the "C-A-G-E-D" system. I heard about this in other books but this chapter finally switched on the light for me and I have been working on learning the system for the past three weeks. The lead solos that are starting to evolve are fun and easy once you get to where you can start moving between the patterns and feel more confident about throwing in the blues note, the dominant seventh, and half-stepping to fill out and spice up the runs. The book is definitely geared for intermediate players and up. A beginner or career novice might get quickly discouraged if not prepared to put the nose to the gridstone and devote time to practice. This is a book that a beginner and intermediate guitar play will find plenty of guitar instruction to grow into.