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Review #3: Complete Chet Atkins Guitar Method

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You can learn to play music using a variety of resources including teachers, online resources, and books.

Mel Bay’s Complete Chet Atkins Guitar Method is an excellent method book aimed at beginner and intermediate guitar players who want to learn to play solo fingerstyle guitar arrangements in the style of Chet Atkins (the majority of which utilize an alternating bass/ Travis Style).  If you are interested in this country-blues style of playing that Chet Atkins made popular starting in the 1950s and lasting until his death in 2001, this is a great place to start.  This book ranges in difficulty from easy to intermediate, although a few of the final arrangements are fairly difficult.

  1. Starts with the very basics of music and playing the guitar, but focused on fingerstyle and fairly quickly gets you playing music with both melody and bass parts.
  2. Excellent and thorough look at playing solo fingerstyle arrangements utilizing alternate bass patterns.  Goes through one key signature at a time and covers all the normal guitar-friendly keys (C, Am, G, Em, F, Dm, D, Bm, A, F#m, E).
  3. Very accessible tunes that you can learn and perform.  Many of these tunes are old folks songs – you won’t find any arrangements of popular modern music.
  4. Useful picking exercises to develop technique.
  5. Several classical-esque tunes that are refreshing after lots of alternate bass.
  6. All standard tuning until the final arrangements (a couple are in alternate tunings).
  7. This book does not get into the modern percussive techniques used by modern players like Michael Hedges, Don Ross, Andy McKee, Mike Dawes, etc. No thumb or string slaps, guitar body percussion, or tapping.
  8. Audio Access included.

This is not a bad first fingerstyle guitar book to purchase and work through.  Obviously working with a teacher will streamline your development and prevent you from developing bad habits.  If you make it through this book, you’ll have a great foundation for playing fingerstyle guitar.  You’ll also learn some useable and fun arrangements of old tunes.

I recommend using an acoustic steel string guitar rather than a classical guitar since there are multiple tunes that utilize the fretting hand thumb over the top.

Published by Mel Bay, written by Chet Atkins.  © 1993

My eBook: Arranging for Fingerstyle Guitar: go to https://joemcmurray.com/index.php/merch/ to purchase a pdf of my eBook.

Riding the Wave: my second fingerstyle guitar album is available on all streaming platforms.

Review #2: Hal Leonard Fingerstyle Guitar

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 24:16 — 33.5MB) | Embed

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You can learn to play music using a variety of resources including teachers, online resources, and books.

Hal Leonard’s “Fingerstyle Guitar” is a solid method book aimed at beginner, intermediate, and advanced guitar players who want to learn to play solo fingerstyle guitar arrangements complete with melody, bass lines, and inner harmony. It also has a chapter focused on accompaniment styles for those players looking to play fingerstyle guitar and sing (or accompany another melody instrument.  This book ranges in difficulty from easy to hard, often within each chapter.

1) Good information about choosing an acoustic guitar and other gear.

2) Good fingerstyle arpeggiation and alternating bass patterns followed by musical application of those patterns.  Unfortunately, the musical applications are often disconnected from each other (they don’t build on each other and there isn’t much explanation).

3) Introduces all the elements of playing fingerstyle guitar. Melody, bass, inner harmony, arpeggiation, alternating bass, special techniques, introduction to alternate tunings.

4) Probably the best popular repertoire of any method book on the market.  Hal Leonard presents popular tunes from the Beatles, Bob Dylan, James Taylor, etc.  You could buy the book just for the repertoire.

5) Wonderful chapter on arranging for fingerstyle guitar.

6) Audio Access included.

Personally, I don’t like how the book teaches alternate tunings. It basically gives you a bunch of chord charts and a few examples for Open G tuning.  They do a slightly better job of discussing Drop D tuning.  It would have been nice if they had arranged “Silent Night” (the focus of Chapter 4) in each of these tunings so that you got a sense of why you might want to use them.  Obviously, each alternate tuning causes the melody to lay out differently on the fretboard, and each alt tuning gives you different access to bass notes, inner harmony, harmonics, etc.

Although the book does introduce percussive string slaps, for the most part it does not get into the modern percussive techniques used by modern players like Michael Hedges, Don Ross, Andy McKee, Mike Dawes, etc. No guitar body percussion or tapping.

Hal Leonard’s “Fingerstyle Guitar” covers a lot of ground and you could return to it for years.  You could buy it just for the great repertoire.  However, as a method book, I’d first recommend Alfred’s “Beginning Fingerstyle Guitar Method, and if you are into the alternate bass style then maybe Mel Bay’s “Chet Atkins Guitar Method.”

Acoustic steel string or classical nylon string guitar.  Published by Hal Leonard, written by Chad Johnson.  © 2009

eBook: Arranging for Fingerstyle Guitar: purchase a pdf of my eBook at http://joemcmurray.com/index.php/checkout/

Riding the Wave: my second fingerstyle guitar album is available on all streaming platforms including Spotify and Apple Music.

Review #1: Alfred Beginning Fingerstyle Guitar Method

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 19:50 — 27.4MB) | Embed

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You can learn to play music using a variety of resources including teachers, online resources, and books.

Alfred’s “Beginning Fingerstyle Guitar Method” is an excellent method book aimed at beginner and intermediate guitar players who want to learn to play solo fingerstyle guitar arrangements complete with melody, bass lines, and inner harmony. I wouldn’t recommend starting in this book if you are just picking up a guitar for the first time, but if you have your basic chords down then you should be ok.  Even if you are a late-intermediate or advanced fingerstyle player, this book is a great creative springboard for new ideas and inspiration.

1) Good information about general fingerstyle guitar technique and useful music theory (the stuff you really need to know including diatonic chords).

2) Good fingerstyle patterns followed by musical application of those patterns.  These make for great warm-ups/technical skill-builders and they provide creative inspiration.

3) Introduces all the elements of playing fingerstyle guitar. Melody, bass, inner harmony, alternating bass, special techniques, introduction to alternate tunings.

4) Great repertoire.  All original songs (no famous songs that you’ve heard on the radio), but they are legitimately catchy and you could play a coffee shop gig with just the tunes in the book.

5) Audio Access

The book does not get into arrangement for fingerstyle guitar (taking a tune or melody and creating a solo fingerstyle arrangement/version).  It also doesn’t get into the modern percussive techniques used by modern players like Michael Hedges, Don Ross, Andy McKee, Mike Dawes, etc.  No thumb slaps, guitar body percussion, or tapping.

This is the first book in a 3-book series (Beginning, Intermediate, and Mastering).  The latter books do discuss more advanced techniques and dive deeper into alternate tunings.  However, this first book is extremely musical.  It’s also worth checking out Alfred’s “Beginning Fingerstyle Arranging and Technique for Guitar.”

Alfred’s “Beginning Fingerstyle Guitar Method” is very thorough and after working through it you should be well on your way to becoming a competent fingerstyle player.

Acoustic steel string or classical nylon string guitar.  Published by Alfred Publishing, written by Lou Manzi.  © 1996

YouTube video review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvrb-VyWwuk&list=PLwXQXeSXRs-iAIVuvwZ5V7ah1qs5jf3K8

eBook: Arranging for Fingerstyle Guitar: purchase a pdf of my eBook at http://joemcmurray.com/index.php/checkout/

Riding the Wave: my second fingerstyle guitar album is available on all streaming platforms including Spotify and Apple Music.