Arlen Roth's Masters of the Telecaster
by Tim Landers

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DVD Reviews of Arlen Roth's Masters of the Telecaster

DVD Review: Arlen Roth's fantastic telecastic guitar book
Summary: 5 Stars

DVD Review: Just like old times
Summary: 5 Stars

DVD Review: Great, but incomplete DVD
Summary: 4 Stars

DVD Review: Change your ability and repetoire overnight
Summary: 5 Stars

I was elated when I went through this book. As background I am a busy professional, and have a son who is learning guitar as well. I regularly buy imported technique magazines in order to continue to grow in my playing. As with any book, you have to be willing to sit down and work through the book. You neednt read music, but exercises are in guitar tablature as well as standard notation.

Heres the great stuff:
CUTS TO THE CHASE!
Lessons are short and achievable. While aimed at the tele, this book would be great for an accoustic player as well. The breadth of technique and style are excellent, from country to bluegrass, to soul, and rock to blues. Everything is universal in terms of using it without a tele-but, the 'quirks' of a Tele and its design are addressed in technique pointers-cool.

Roth's exercises teach great fundamental licks ( 'cowboy chords' in the first three frets) to slick stuff (up and down the neck like the 'gods'), combined with technique-something that makes a player feel like they have accomplished something right away and which is usable in playing with others. Simple exercises often have a slightly different finger technique to work on.

Guaranteed to help you find the groove, and to help you to grasp more sophisticated techniques. This book can take a player outside of whatever box or rut he/she may be in. It offers fun, and yet can be a great exercise in precision as well. Much of the exercise 'stuff' you have heard,...now try to play it,....now try to play it perfectly.....

Offers a window into the Kingdom of Tele, and perhaps genres outside your world, or, a more in depth glimpse.

This is one of the best and most easily digestable books I have ever found. Period. A beginner will be able to use it-you must have the CD's that accompany it, and use them side by side.

Drawbacks: the previous reviewers have noted that the book's binding and CD tracks are a bit less than perfect. These are valid observations-nothing that is a problem-IMHO-use it, by the time it falls apart you will be a better player-and for the ...retentive-have it three hole punched or whatever-to its credit the cds are each stored in a divided plastic sleeve desinged to protect each of the CDs from paper scratches. The CD index is in the book, (and only in the book) and up to 4 exercises are in each track-I found this to be a minor issue. I can find each exercise with minimal hassle.

Roth's Tele insight is great for the novice-a breadth with moderate depth-an overall roadmap to Teledom. The comments about the text not having the best 'sparkle' are well taken, but it is more of a technique book than a history. I found the insights into players and other areas great because they were short. For its retail price it could have more color photos and be more "ergonomic" in layout, etc. as observed.

As a guitar geek regarding Les Pauls, thier history, construction, and specs, this is not Tele techno minutia-there are other sources-and-this can be a blessing to the non-geek.

Would buy it again and will probably give several copies to my guitar playing friends and family-it is a formula for success for all but the totally unmotivated player. I wish this had been out when I started playing, its an entire 'goody box' to add to your guitar "bag of tricks".

DVD Review: Chicken Pickin' Good
Summary: 4 Stars

If you want to do that, then this is the book for you. Arlen Roth is one of the best known Tele session men in the business, and while he's no Byron or Keats, the explanations are simple enough to follow, and the exercises (there are hundreds of them so do not fret (har har) that you'll run out any time soon) are great mix - some challenging, some easy, but most importantly all authentic sounding. You don't need to get far into this book to be learning useful stuff which will expand your tonal palette for good.

For some reason, Telecaster playing has developed in a different direction to "normal" guitar playing, and dipping into this book gives you another direction to explore. It does require your own application of course - more application than I can easily be bothered mustering, so I think this book will be dipped into every now and then rather than worn out cover to cover. That's a criticism of me, not the book, of course.

Nitpicks: the CD track numbering doesn't match the exercise numbers. This seems to me to be an elementary mistake, and it means that tracking down the CD part for, say, Exercise 104 (Elvis's Mystery Train - practically the first thing I did when I opened the package from Amazon) - is hard. Also the book won't (without massacring the spine) stay open when you try to play along with an exercise.

The book also includes a brief history of the Telecaster and a few photos, but neither the photos (included mostly to show off Roth's collection, I suspect) nor the history are really much chop and I certainly wouldn't recommend the book for these alone. It's a fairly cheaply produced and printed edition, but the value of the advice in it alone justifies the price.

Description of Arlen Roth's Masters of the Telecaster

In this video, Telemaster Arlen Roth teaches you all the classic licks and riffs of the great Telemasters, as well as techniques such as PEDAL STEEL BENDS, BEHIND-THE-NUT BENDS, CHICKIN PICKIN', CLASSIC ROCKABILLY, RHYTHM STYLES, BLUES TECHNIQUES, SHUFFLE PATTERNS, FULL CHORD BENDS, BANJO ROLLS, and much more. Plus, Arlen review the styles of all the Tele greats, like ALBERT LEE, DANNY GATTON, KEITH RICHARDS, STEVE CROPPER, and JAMES BURTON. You'll see lots of actual footage of the Telemasters like DANNY GATTON, ALBERT LEE, JAMES BURTON, ALBERT COLLINS, and many more!

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