Lone Soldier: Tab Book Review

BLUEGRASS UNLIMITED JUNE 1998
MEL BAY PRESENTS LONE SOLDIER, BRILLIANT FLATPICKING SOLOS by David Grier. Published by Mel Bay Publications, Inc., 63 pgs, $20.00

Right there on the front page of the tab book to David Grier’s “Lone Soldier” it says in plain English that you should purchase the available recording “to insure accuracy of interpretation and ease in learning.” Let’s assume for a moment that someone would buy a book of original guitar pieces without having access first to a recording of what those pieces sounded like. If that happened, what could that person hope to learn from this book?

While the publisher spends much time to the good putting in little symbols indication every manner of guitar techniques, from scoops to wiggles to staggered chords, they leave out two bits of information necessary to playing this music correctly. On only three of the twelve tunes do they mention anything about how the

Lone Soldier Book

song is to be played. On only one of those three, “Tarnation” by Don Reno, do they tell you the tempo. More vexing is a problem I’ve commented on more than once, the absence of time value on the notes in the tablature. Yes, it’s in the standard notation line, but not everyone reads music. In fact, if I remember correctly, the whole idea of writing tab was to help those who don’t read music. Ways of indication time values in tab exist. Let’s use them.

Another thing a player needs to know is something that most people know already. David Grier is an incredible guitar player. He’s in the upper echelon. What that means, of course, is that you better be many steps beyond “Wildwood Flower” stage to play this stuff. His pieces are just full of strings of hammer-ons and pull-offs, slides and vibrato, all interspersed with crosspicking passages and lots of hanging notes. They are a nuance player’s dream.

One need only attempt “Pork Chops And Applesauce” to see what I mean. In one five bar passage after the intro, Mr. Grier employs seven triple-stop partial chords, five slides, four staggered upstroke chords four muted-string chords and a triplet. Then he takes things up a notch. Similarly complex ideas appear throughout the book, be it the crosspicking of “Alphabet Soup” or the continuous return to triplets in “Engagement Waltz”. The facility of his playing really comes through when you see it written out and it is staggering.

If you are a fan of David Grier’s, play guitar at a pretty high level and can get a copy of the recording on which the book is based, “Lone Soldier” will be perfect for you.
BW