Acoustic Guitar Primer for Beginners

Book, Video, and CD

by Bert Casey
Reviewed by Dan Miller

Flatpicking Guitar Magazine

November/December 1998

I'm going to begin this review with a very bold statement considering all of the great instructional material for the guitar available in today's market. But, here goes: This is absolutely the best instructional product for the guitar that I have ever seen. Now, you are asking "Why?" three reasons: presentation, content, and price.

Presentation: This video/book/CD combination contains a brilliantly indexed and very easy to use presentation. For starters, a time counter runs in the corner of the video screen during the entire video. Each lesson, exercise, and song in the book is indexed with the time code from the video. This makes finding a particular lesson, song, or exercise on the video extremely easy. If that is not enough, the video also shows a title screen at the beginning of each lesson, which also aids in finding specific instruction using the fast-forward mode on the VCR. The CD is also very well indexed with each track relating to a specific lesson. A printed index comes with the book and on the CD Bert announces which page of the book he is working from before he plays the chord, scale, exercise, or song.

Another really great presentation feature of the video is that the tablature for each chord, scale, song, or exercise Bert is playing actually appears on the screen along with close-ups of his left and right hand. A pointer, like the old "bouncing ball", follows along with Bert on the tablature so you know where you are in the song. I found this feature to be very useful as I could watch the video and follow along on my own guitar by looking at the tab on the screen. I didn't have to split my attention between the book and the video in order to see what I needed to be playing.

In addition to allowing the student to easily play along with the video, I think having the tab on screen is also an effective method for helping the beginner learn how to read tab. Looking at the screen you can easily see the left and right hand positions at the same time you see the tablature expression for what the hands are doing on the guitar.

Needless to say, I was extremely impressed with the presentation of the video and the handy indexing of the video with the book and CD.

Content: The entire time I watched the video, looked at the book, and then listened to the CD, I kept saying to myself, "Where was this product 20 years ago when I was learning how to play"? The step-by step approach and teaching methodology here are excellent.

After explaining the basics, such as holding the guitar, tuning, holding the pick, right hand position, strumming, etc., Bert shows the G, C, and D chords. From there he teaches how to play these chords using a simple down strum to the songs "Tom Dooley", "Going Down That Road Feeling Bad", and "He's Got The Whole World In His Hands". Every song in the book/video/CD is first played slowly, then played a little faster with Bert singing along. The words to each song are also included in the book.

Next Bert explains tablature, shows the G scale and talks about good practice habits. From there, the next levels of rhythm technique, the bass strum and the alternating bass, are explained and demonstrated using the same songs as above plus an addition, "Worried Man Blues". After explaining down-up picking (it has been all downstrokes till now) Bert moves on to the next section of the book.

Section II continues with more familiar tunes (a total of about 23 tunes in all) and more advanced techniques taught in a graduated and well organized fashion. This material includes the down up strum, playing in 3/4 time, various bass runs, hammer-ons, pull-offs, a variety of G runs, and great rhythmic variations. When each new technique is introduced, several songs which employ that technique, along with new chords, are also introduced.

The video ends at this point, however, the book and CD continue with a short section on lead playing (5 tunes are presented). The book also includes scale exercises, a section on music theory, and extensive chord charts. All in all, I think Bert covers every base using a very easy to follow step-by-step approach and learning method.

Price: Unbelievably, the cost of the one hour video is only $9.95. The book/CD package is $14.95. So, for only $25 you can get a mound of great learning material.

If you are a beginner or if you have friends and/or family that want to learn how to play the acoustic guitar, I highly recommend this book/CD/video package. I think it is the best one on the market.

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