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Is this one of the best or worst method or repertoire books for learning to play acoustic fingerstyle blues guitar?
You can learn to play music using a variety of resources including teachers, online resources, and books.
12-Bar Fingerstyle Blues by Dave Rubin is another great repertoire book full of 12-bar blues choruses. I loved the author’s other book, Solo Blues Guitar, and now I recommend this one as well – these fun arrangements inspire me to improvise in new ways with new grooves. However, unlike the arrangements of his other book, these arrangements all need to be played without a plectrum. This book has some tunes that late-beginner fingerstyle players could handle, but the book is most appropriate for intermediate players.
The tunes in 12-Bar Fingerstyle Blues contain more repetitive grooves than some of the other fingerstyle blues method books on the market. Fewer lyrical phrases in the melodies. Whether that’s what you’re looking for is up to you. However, I find that these pieces present some great grooves that you can use as the foundation for your own variations and improvisation.
To really get the most out of the book, you will want to:
- Learn an example as written,
- Understand and internalize the groove – the shuffle, chord stabs, etc.
- Create your own melodic variations and improvisations while maintaining the original groove.
By treating each short 12-bar tune as a seed or template for your own creativity, you can really milk these ideas and extend them into longer performances.
This book presents a lot of great 12-bar choruses from various subgenres. For experienced players, it is very fast to go through the entire book. Because each tune is a 12-bar chorus, you get a lot of ideas that you can digest, combine, and make into your own in the future. This book is simple and effective if you know how to use it.
I appreciate the chronological organization of this book, which separates tunes out into subgenres including Delta and Southern Country Blues (the longest section), Ragtime Blues, Piedmont Blues, Prewar Chicago Blues, Texas Blues, Postwar Chicago Blues, and Modern American Solo Steel-String Blues. Unfortunately, the tunes don’t really follow a clear difficulty progression. Within each section, multiple keys signatures and grooves are presented, and some happen to be a bit harder than others.
At the beginning of each subgenre, the author presents some cool history and key players to listen to. I try to set aside time within my practice sessions to listen to lots of recordings of these players. Personally, I listen on Spotify. This listening is time well spent as it attunes me to the sounds and feel that I should aiming for as I play the tunes.
12-Bar Fingerstyle Blues provides both treble clef and tablature for each arrangement. Unfortunately, no fingering is provided in the music. For each example, I notated my own fingering in the music, after which I was able to play much more smoothly, accurately, and confidently. The skill of choosing sensible fingering is important, and you will need to look elsewhere to further develop this skill.
Recordings are available online through Hal Leonard’s website. These will be very helpful to many readers. As with Solo Blues Guitar, the recordings were done by Doug Boduch, the author of Hal Leonard’s Fingerpicking Guitar, which I reviewed in Review #17.
© 2012 by Hal Leonard
My own books:
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.
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.
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.
