You Can Teach Yourself Dobro

Janet Davis is an excellent writer. There is no doubt about that. She is also an excellent musician. Her knowledge of all sorts of music is encyclopedic. I have several of her 5 string banjo books, so when I took up the dobro, I decided to purchase her book as a starting point. I'm glad I did. It's a winner!

The book is a series of lessons that will teach me how to play a dobro style guitar. I like the layout with the charts, tablatures, and instructions. And I like that each lesson has actual songs with which to practice what I have learned. I wish it had the lyrics with the songs but that isn't a big problem. I do recommend this book to anyone starting out new.

Bought this book for my husband who had never in his life picked up a dobro - he's been working through it and having a good time! The book is very clearly written and progresses naturally through the learning process. The accompanying CD is big a help in that he can listen to how the songs and exercises are supposed to sound. The only problem we've found is that sometimes the information presented is not detailed enough for a true beginner. Other than that, it's an excellent book that I'd recommend to any beginning player.

The way that the book is written, even someone that has never seen the instrument can play to some extent>

I was very disappointed with the book and CD. Not really helpful in learning the Dobro and you have to order another product (tabular sheets) to have everything you need. I feel like I threw my money away.

I really enjoy the book and video. It has clarified many things from my in person lessons. I feel a lot more comfortable

I bought this for my husband to compliment the book he received with the dobro. The DVD has good instruction for the beginner novelist. I would recommend this to anyone seeking to self teach dobro. Money well spent.

not the original cover but the rest is great

When I decided to add dobro to my stable of instruments I bought myself a copy of Mel Bay's Complete Dobro Player by Stacy Phillips, assuming that it would be as "complete" as the title implied and would start from first principles. I was wrong to do so. While that book does run through some of the basics it is really a workbook for intermediate to advanced players, and as someone whose slide playing had hitherto been cursory and (*cough*) experimental, I needed a good deal more hand-holding than Mr Phillips offered.Fortunately the next tutor I bought was the DVD edition of Janet Davis's excellent book, and in spite of the appalling, childish cover it proved to be something of a gem.I should say upfront that Janet's book doesn't start from the most extreme basics. She assumes you know some of the principles of another stringed instrument, that you are aware of what a chord progression is, for instance - and that's fair enough, as I suspect that people who take up dobro as a first instrument are rare birds indeed. She does, however start with tuning and holding the instrument and tonebar, and leads you from there to playing some quite impressive pieces via a very smooth learning curve. On the way she touches on useful subject matter such as picking out melodies for yourself, using licks over chord progressions, vibrato, using banjo-style rolls, playing in minor keys (the dobro isn't as limited in that respect as some imply) and very much more.The examples given stem mainly from the familiar bluegrass repertoire, with breaks for the likes of Wabash Cannonball and Footprints In The Snow and a good number of fiddle tunes like Blackberry Blossom and Red Haired Boy, all very useful for the newbie wanting to make their dobro heard in parking lot sessions as soon as possible. Where copyright infingements threaten to spoil the fun there are some approximations of originals to point the player in the right direction. Sunnyvale Breakdown, anyone?Importantly, the accompanying DVD isn't by any means a throwaway either. It's really useful to actually see Janet play the majority of tunes from the book and thereby lead by example, and it helps that she is such a friendly and articulate teacher. The video may be very gen-before-last technically, but that doesn't stop all the good things shining through.All in all then, a very good package which is difficult to fault. Maybe there should have been some more definite instruction about intonation, which was an early bugbear for me personally, but I got over that hurdle by listening and watching the DVD very carefully. Thanks for the flying start, Janet!

the book is the best , she makes it so easy to learn to play the dobro, i m so glad i got this book from amazon.

This is an excellent teaching book. It helps you to move around g dobro tuning (gbdgbd) & clearly demonstrates how to play in other keys. The accompanying video is very useful.

The book is informative and well-paced for a beginner like me. (I've been playing standard guitar for years, but steel guitar is new for me.) Because of time constraints the DVD does NOT show all the songs, but as she mentions, all the basic techniques in the book are demonstrated. The entire book is in what she calls "G tuning" (or "universal tuning" -tuned to open G chord.) I enjoyed the songs but actually I didn't know most of them. There are almost no "famous" songs, probably due to copyrights, etc. Also, it is mostly country/bluegrass, very little Hawaiian. So if you want to learn mainly Hawaiian style, perhaps a different book would suit you.There is some basic info about the steel bar and finger picks, but personally, I think I would have appreciated a little more on how to use the fingerpicks, etc.Overall, I can recommend this book to any beginner interested in this fun instrument!