Beginning Fingerstyle Blues Guitar (Guitar Books) Paperback – May 1, 1993

This is not a new book (published 1993), but it is exceptionally well organized and written. The first part of the book focuses on the critical ability to play a bass line independent of the melody. For anyone who has tried this "walk and chew gum" skill, you'll understand that it is not natural. The book, however approaches this indirectly so you aren't so focused on the separation. Instead, you concentrate on playing the tab as you see it and the alternating bass takes care of itself.The skill build up is very gradual and manageable. You play a simple blues using only the A chord, the another with the E then the G and B7. All the while, you are working on that independent bass. Fairly soon, you play more than just the chord notes and pick up the other melody notes within each chord. Looking back, you suddenly realize that you've picked up quite a bit and you are still only on about page 20.This is not a book you will push through in a week or a month. If you work on each lesson until you have a reasonable (not great) ability to play it, you will gradually accumulate some very good skills, but even if you are putting in a hour every day, expect the book to take you up to a year to complete (unless you are unusually gifted).It is a very enjoyable book for building skills. I just wish it had a few "break out" moments within each lesson session. You know, a short rift that sounded really cool. You could jump to it when you just can't bring yourself to play that lesson sheet one more time today. It would also keep you interest up.If you want to pick up some basic, essential old-school blues licks, this a great book for you.

Spent my first half hour with this book and I do believe it's exactly what I've been looking for! I really appreciate the pace of the lessons. So many books I've tried to follow, but....nope. This one starts super easy and progresses step by step. It's truly inspiring and makes me want to practice and get better.

This book and CD has its ups and downs. The CD, for one thing, is a problem. The guy rambles and rambles and rambles, and the content on the CD is poorly indexed to the book. The content of both the book and the CD also tend to zoom from simple to quite difficult, back to simple, and so on.But in spite of these not inconsiderable flaws, I knew within an hour that I really liked the book anyway. I have picked up lots of good ideas. The book would be good for raw beginners through fairly experienced intermediates. Beginners should understand that fingerpicking is like learning to ride a bike; you're going to fall down and skin your knees quite a few times before you manage to ride even to the end of the block. I think this book does a good job of explaining that, and giving beginners tips on how to get started.Intermediates will find lots of really cool, fun stuff to play. The songs at the end of the book (five complete songs) are the icing on the cake, because by then you've already learned lots of other good stuff. The style of the music ranges from shuffles to "sweet" blues like John Hurt stuff, and some "harder" or "meaner" blues. Overall, a very good mix of the music. You can tell that the guy picking the music knows his stuff and understands that he has to present a solid balance, a good sampling of fingerstyle blues. That's sadly lacking in some books.And intermediates should also note that there is, in my opinion, some VERY challenging stuff here for them. Well, I suppose that an advanced player wouldn't think so, but an advanced player wouldn't buy this book. There are some pieces here that will stretch your fingers, give your wrist a workout, and force you to learn some difficult maneuvers. And that's good! So the book won't just give you lots of "treading water" music that won't take you anywhere. If you're an intermediate, you'll pick up some things that start moving you along to the advanced level.One other positive point--there is a LOT of music in this book. Some books seem like they end no sooner than they get started. Not this one. Admittedly, there is a fair amount of material in the middle of the book that is kind of repetitive, but the point is to start simple, then go a little more complex, and then a little more, and so on. So I don't fault the author for that. It's better than going from an extremely simple picking pattern straight into a heavily-syncopated pattern that leaves the beginner bewildered.Just be prepared to deal with the endlessly rambling monologue on the CD, and be prepared to skip through the book and the CD to find what you want.

I got this book based on recommendations of other purchasers here at Amazon. What a great choice! This is a methodical, easy to understand and progressive book. What this means is that you start easy and build your way up, but you get so much as you go. If you are not able to read music, there is tab and good - easy to understand explanations of note values and time signatures and how to apply them to your playing. Each lesson and exercise builds on the one before and inspires confidence. This is well worth you money and time. At the end, you will be prepared to take on some of the Stefan Grossman material and build from there. The only negative that I have to offer is that my accompanying CD was defective - and the company that publishes this book would not make good on replacing it. What this means is that I will think twice before I buy anything from this publisher. However, this book - without the CD - is a treasure and one I will keep and refer back to over the years. Highly recommended.