Song Arrangements

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

Hal Leonard’s 100 Most Popular Songs for Fingerpicking Guitar is a repertoire book filled with solo fingerstyle guitar arrangements of popular songs from mostly the 1960s through present day.  Genres covered include classic and modern rock, pop, folk, jazz, theme songs, Spanish classical, and more.  There are songs from the Beatles, Ed Sheeran, Duke Ellington, Metallica, Aerosmith, Imagine Dragons, Bob Marley, Stevie Wonder, etc.  Most of the tunes are suitable for intermediate fingerstyle players, although there are some easier tunes for late beginners as well as some tunes that are significantly more difficult.  If you are looking to build out your repertoire for local gigs, this book is incredible! 

Overall, the arrangements are in guitar-friendly keys, they stay below the 5^th fret, and they sound good.  You can always simplify or add to the arrangements to suit your tastes and skill level.  Most tunes are in standard tuning, although there are some tunes that use drop D tuning.  Tunes are arranged utilizing a variety of techniques including simple melody and bass, alternating bass, and arpeggiation. The book 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.

Although this book is a repertoire book and not a method book, there is a single page in the back providing an “Introduction to Fingerstyle,” which is probably worthless to anyone who is attempting to play the tunes in this book.  The rest of the book is just filled with song arrangements in alphabetical order, and there is no background information for any of the tunes.  The music is presented as a treble clef lead sheet with the main melody and the harmonizing chords written above, and the solo guitar arrangements are presented in treble clef and tablature.  Occasional left-hand fingerings are provided.

Although this book has great tunes for your gigs, it would be difficult to bring the book to a gig and play from the pages.  The book is 430 pages and has a softcover binding, so you need binder clips to hold the pages open.  Most tunes require multiple page turns, which is a disaster if you are holding the pages open with binder clips.  Your only options would be to photocopy pages or memorize the tunes.

For most of the tunes you could use an acoustic steel string or classical nylon string guitar since most arrangements don’t require using your fretting hand thumb over the top.

1. Extensive song selection.  You are bound to like at least a few of the tunes if you like popular or rock music.
2. Great arrangements that generally feature melody and bass, alternating bass, and/or arpeggiation.
3. Provides treble clef lead sheets (melody with harmonizing chords written above) as well as treble clef and TAB guitar arrangements.
4. Some fretting hand fingering is included, but there isn’t any picking hand fingering.
5. Hard to hold pages open, lots of page turns.
6. No audio access.  However, arrangements generally sound similar to the original tunes.

Published by Hal Leonard.  © 2019

eBook: Arranging for Fingerstyle Guitar: go to http://joemcmurray.com/checkout/ to purchase a pdf of my eBook.

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