Arranging

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General guitar method books are intended to guide beginner players through a comprehensive study of technique, reading standard notation, playing basic chords, etc. However, they can provide a very useful platform for acoustic fingerstyle practice if you know how to use them!  Today we’ll take a look at two widely used guitar method books that are closely related:

• Essential Elements for Guitar: Comprehensive Guitar Method (Will Schmid and Bob Morris), and
• Hal Leonard’s Guitar Method Book 1 (Will Schmid and Greg Koch)

For years, I used the Hal Leonard Guitar Method with my kid students, but at some point, I came across the Essential Elements book (which is also published by Hal Leonard).  This book shares Will Schmid as an author, and most of the treble clef exercises and melodies are exactly the same, but there are a bunch of extra tunes mixed in to give students more chordal practice.  Other than about $3 in price difference, there is really no reason to ever buy the Hal Leonard Guitar Method.

These books do have value to beginner players who just picked up a guitar and have no idea where to start.  You can’t go wrong working through a general method book, especially with a teacher who can ensure that you are developing the proper technique, who can introduce appropriate supplemental repertoire, etc.  However, if you are trying to teach yourself to play guitar, a general method book will certainly get your farther than watching random YouTube videos.  A book like this will guide you from point A to point B in a linear, sensible course of study, whereas YouTube videos tend to jump around from topic to topic according to YouTube’s algorithm rather than your best interest as an aspiring guitarist.

Now, I almost never work with adult students straight through a book like this, as many of them already have some experience and have somewhat clear musical goals that may be better served with a more focused book.  For example, there are fingerstyle method books for my fingerstyle students, there are classical method books for my classical students, and so on.

However, having spent over a decade teaching kids out of these books, I have found that many of these melodies make great platforms for fingerstyle guitar!  In a typical guitar lesson, a teacher may ask their student to perform a melody from the book.  The teacher will generally either watch and listen closely or they will provide some sort of accompaniment – that is,

• They will play the melody in unison with the student to help guide them,
• They’ll play a harmony that is written out in the book, or
• They’ll strum the chords. 

Over the years I started accompanying my students with solo fingerstyle versions of the tunes to provide both their melody and the underlying harmony.  This has proven to be helpful to my students, challenging and satisfying for myself, and fun for all.

I’m planning to do a series of videos breaking down how I create these little arrangements.  My process has been codified in my book Arranging for Fingerstyle, which is available as an eBook which you can purchase through the link in the show description below.  However, for this first video, I’ll just give you a sample of how I transform some of the exercises.

My own books:

Arranging for Fingerstyle Guitar: go to http://joemcmurray.com/checkout/ to purchase a pdf of my eBook.  Learning to arrange melodies will also help your fingerstyle songwriting and your understanding of the inner workings of fingerstyle guitar.

Fingerstyle Blues Guitar: An In-Depth Study of the 12-Bar Blues in E Major – Books 1 and 2 are available in paperback or as an eBook through Amazon [https://a.co/d/g7Udsso (Book 1) and https://a.co/d/aDbh4H0 (Book 2)].  The first priority of these books is to quickly get you playing a solo instrumental 12-bar blues, and then to build on it until you can freely improvise or “jam.” You should be up and running by the end of the third chapter, and each following chapter will add icing on the cake.

My upcoming book, Arranging for Fingerstyle Ukulele, will be published by Mel Bay in 2026.

My music is available on all streaming platforms at https://open.spotify.com/artist/5dcokTG6C598OhTslHH5uo?si=hrQb7FViSZewDRSgECw9Ew:

Pins on the Map: my third fingerstyle guitar album was released on January 19, 2024. Watch the first single, “Open Road,” on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/uPBh8sZQsT4?si=EM_wAwnHFqU1VC9C.

Riding the Wave and Acoustic Oasis: my first two fingerstyle guitar albums.