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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.