Guitar Books the Podcast Joe McMurray

Quick advice, tips, and tricks for improving at fingerstyle guitar, ukulele, etc.







To progress as a musician and achieve your long-term and short-term goals, it is important to practice well.  Practicing efficiently and effectively will help you to improve faster with less practice time.  This is relevant not only to fingerstyle guitarists and fingerstyle ukulele players, but to all aspiring musicians regardless of their chosen instrument or genre of music.







Think about what your long-term and short-term goals are, and then create a practice plan that will help you achieve those goals.  You can be extremely specific and schedule your time down to the minute. 







Example:







Long term goal: perform a local fingerstyle guitar gig a year from now.







Short term goal: memorize and master one repertoire tune in the next month.







Very short term goal: memorize and master the verse of that repertoire tune in the upcoming week.







Available practice time: you can fit in three 20-minute practice sessions each week.







Monday and Friday practice sessions could each consist of:









-2 minutes warmup routine







-10 minutes working on one line of the verse of your new repertoire song







-8 minutes repertoire review (other tunes that you have been preparing for your performance next year)









Wednesday practice session could consist of:







-1 minute warmup routine







-10 minutes method/technique book







-5 minutes working on one line of the verse of your new repertoire song







4 minutes repertoire review (other tunes that you have been preparing for your performance next year)







Your goals will continually change and your practice schedules must adjust as well.







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







My eBook: 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 music is available on all streaming platforms – links on my Linktree page: linktr.ee/joemcmurray







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.

Quick advice, tips, and tricks for improving at fingerstyle guitar, ukulele, etc.







In order to progress as a musician it is important to have clear long-term and short-term goals.  This is relevant not only to fingerstyle guitarists and fingerstyle ukulele players, but to all aspiring musicians regardless of their chosen instrument or genre of music.







Figure out what your long-term goals are.  Make realistic short-term goals that help you progress towards those long-term goals.  In a future Tone Talk episode, I’ll talk about building a specific daily or weekly practice schedule to achieve all of these goals.  In yet another future episode I’ll talk about choosing and maintaining the right repertoire to help you achieve these goals.







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







My eBook: 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 music is available on all streaming platforms – links on my Linktree page: linktr.ee/joemcmurray







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.

Is this one of the best or worst method books for acoustic fingerstyle guitar?







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







Hal Leonard’s Fingerpicking Guitar, written by Doug Boduch, is a method book for learning to play solo fingerstyle (or “fingerpicking”) guitar or fingerstyle guitar accompaniment.  The book features lots of popular tunes (the Beatles, Adele, Sam Smith, Imagine Dragons, The Police, Toto, Ed Sheeran, etc.).  Overall, It is suitable for beginner through intermediate players with the tunes in the later sections of the book becoming progressively more difficult up to that intermediate skill level.  Advanced players may still find some fun repertoire tunes.  Guitar teachers may find this book to be a great teaching supplement.  The progression of topics is well laid out, the examples and arrangements are playable and sound good, and the text is concise. 







The book is very short at 38 pages.  This is partially due to a lack of detailed explanations, which is part of why this book may work better as a supplement to private lessons or to another more detailed method book.  The book is also short because it just doesn’t have that many examples.  The examples and arrangements are of high quality, but they don’t cover the many nuances that could pop up in the world of fingerstyle guitar.







If you are looking to play solo fingerstyle guitar arrangements of popular/modern tunes, then this book may be for you.  If you are looking for folk, blues, ragtime, Celtic, or classical music, then there are better options.







Fingerpicking Guitar starts with examples of playing easy single-line melodies (Happy Birthday, etc.) with your fingers or thumb.  The book then presents some arrangements that utilize a single, easy-to-grab bass note underneath the melody in each measure.  Later on it focuses on arrangements that feature alternating bass lines (Travis picking).  The book provides some basic arpeggiation examples for accompaniment as well as some arrangements that utilize arpeggiation, but it doesn’t really provide much detail about how to apply arpeggiation underneath a melody in a solo arrangement.  There is no discussion of more complex techniques (natural and artificial harmonics, harmonizing melodies with 3rds, 6ths, etc.), alternate tunings, or more modern percussive techniques.







Don’t confuse this book with Hal Leonard’s Fingerstyle Guitar by Chad Johnson.  There is a similar progression of information, but they are different books.  The older Fingerstyle Guitar also features popular tunes, but is overall lengthier and more detailed.  However, I prefer some of the arrangements in the newer Fingerpicking Guitar, especially for my guitar students.







There is virtually ZERO music theory in Fingerstyle Guitar.  This may appeal to some readers.  However, you won’t learn how to apply the concepts/techniques presented into other musical situations (other tunes, etc.).  With the help of a teacher or another book you could get a lot more out of Fingerpicking Guitar.







The book includes access to online audio or video for every example.  The audio can be slowed down which can be very helpful.  The guitar playing is clean and the recording quality is high.  Example numbers don’t line up between Example 30 and 33, but they are all there.







All playing examples are provided in standard notation (treble clef) and tablature.







You could use either a steel string acoustic or nylon string classical guitar to work through this book.  You don’t have to fret any bass notes using your thumb over the top (although I like to here and there).







Published by Hal Leonard © 2023.

Is this one of the best or worst method books for acoustic fingerstyle guitar?







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







David Hamburger’s The Acoustic Guitar Fingerstyle Method is a method book for learning to play solo fingerstyle (or “fingerpicking”) guitar in the American roots styles (folk, blues, ragtime, early jazz, marches).  The book becomes progressively more difficult – the early sections of the book are appropriate for beginner fingerstyle players who have some experience with open chords and the later sections of the book are more suitable for intermediate players.  Advanced players may still find some useful information, inspiration, or fun repertoire tunes.  This is a well-thought-out book with a great progression of information and fun arrangements of tunes.







The book focuses on alternating bass (Travis picking) arrangements and steady bass arrangements (monotonic bass, walking bass, etc.). There are also brief chapters on Drop D and open D tuning.  The material flows in a sensible progression from chapter to chapter as you build skills and knowledge.  Each chapter includes text and playing examples that directly prepare you for a 1-2 page tune that showcases the techniques or concepts being taught.  The arrangements of the tunes are really nice (they sound good and are playable), although don’t usually include any fingering (there is picking hand fingering notated in the examples, but not the full tunes).  The tunes are stylistically similar to those found in Stefan Grossman’s “Complete Country Blues Guitar Book” and Mel Bay’s “Complete Chet Atkins Guitar Method” although with a very different teaching approach.







The book covers a lot of ground in only 74 pages – from beginning Travis Picking to steady bass blues to harmonized walking bass lines to alternate tunings, etc.  While the examples and tunes are of high quality, there aren’t that many examples for each topic, so you won’t get that deep of an understanding of how to apply some concepts to different situations.  One example of this is playing walking bass lines under your melody- you’ll play a few tunes that include this, but you won’t really learn how to build your own walking bass lines so that you can apply them to your own arrangements or compositions.  However, by the end of the book, you will have a firm grasp of the general approaches of playing using an alternating bass (Travis Picking) or a steady bass.







There is not a lot of music theory in the book.  This may appeal to some readers.  However, it adds to the issue that you may not be able to apply a concept like walking bass lines to other situations.







The text is descriptive and helpful.  However, I don’t like how the publisher places the text as a continuous block at the top of the page with the examples clumped together at the bottom of the page.  Harder for my eyes to jump back and forth.







The author includes great listening recommendations that are relevant to the tunes and topics at hand.







The included audio (2 CDs) provides all examples and tunes played at full speed and slowed down.  The guitar playing is clean and the recording quality is high.







All playing examples are provided in standard notation (treble clef) and tablature.







You could use either a steel string acoustic or nylon string classical guitar to work through this book.  You shouldn’t need to fret any bass notes using your thumb over the top.







Published by String Letter Publishing (publisher of Acoustic Guitar Magazine) © 2007.  Distributed by Hal Leonard.







My eBook: Arranging for Fingerstyle Guitar: go to http://joemcmurray.

Is this one of the best or worst method books for fingerstyle guitar?







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







Dan Thorpe’s Fingerstyle 101 is a method book for learning to play fingerstyle (or “fingerpicking”) guitar.  The book is appropriate for absolute beginner fingerstyle players who have some experience with open chords.  Intermediate and advanced players will fly through this book and may find a few useful ideas but probably won’t find any revelatory information or inspiring performance pieces.  The author has written this book with older adult students in mind, although any beginning students would certainly benefit from working through it.  The book contains lots of practical advice on fingerpicking technique, playing posture, and strategies for practicing and memorization.  It has sections including “Pro Tips to Make Your Fingerpicking Journey Easier and More Enjoyable,” “The 7 Most Deadly Fingerpicking Mistakes,” and “The 10 Steps for Getting the Most Out of Your Fingerpicking Playing.”  There is one section of the book (less than half the book) with actual playing examples, and these examples are great first fingerpicking patterns to learn along with some practical applications.







There is lots of text in the book.  Fortunately, this text is informative without being bland.  Lots of lists, summaries, pictures, etc.  The text has a large font size so it is easy on the eyes.  Thorpe provides advice for avoiding guitar-related injuries – i.e. information about how to hold the guitar in the classical style to help older students avoid back pain.  There is some psychology about how to learn efficiently/effectively and how to make and set goals.  There is a chord reference guide as well as sections on understanding basic rhythms and reading tablature (TAB).







The playing section in the middle of the book progresses at a reasonable pace for a beginner fingerstyle student.  Thorpe teaches ten fingerpicking patterns, and for each pattern there are three examples.  The first example is as basic as possible over a single chord shape.  The second example has you play the pattern over a simple chord progression (always C G D).  Since you always utilize the same C G D chord progression, you will be able to focus your brain power on your picking hand and the new pattern.  This is also very practical because if you want to fingerpick the guitar while singing, it is useful to try out a pattern over simple chord progressions that you might find in folk or pop songs.  Finally, the third example introduces a more complex chord progression, stylistic elements such as hammer-ons and pull-offs, and sometimes a (very simple) moving melody or bass line.  These third examples are not long enough to be performance pieces, but they may inspire you to add some flair to your accompaniment fingerpicking or to write your own compositions.







The book doesn’t progress far enough to establish a specific style within the umbrella of fingerstyle guitar.  You learn a few classical arpeggiation patterns, a few Travis picking patterns, and a few patterns that have some folk or blues flair.  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.







All playing examples are provided in standard notation (treble clef) and tablature.  Audio recordings are available for all playing examples.







You could use either a steel string or nylon string classical guitar to work through this book.







Published by Rockstar Publishing  © 2015, 2020.  Distributed by Hal Leonard.







My eBook: Arranging for Fingerstyle Guitar: go ...

Christmas repertoire books featuring solo fingerstyle guitar arrangements are great for the holiday season!  Whether you simply want to get into the Christmas spirit or you need to perform Christmas tunes at your gigs, there are a number of great Christmas repertoire books.  In this review I will look at three books that I really enjoy: Hal Leonard’s “Fingerpicking Yuletide,” Mark Phillips’ “Christmas Carols for Easy Classical Guitar” (Cherry Lane Music Company), and John Hill’s “Classical Guitar Christmas Sheet Music” (Hal Leonard).







To be clear, all books are suitable for either steel string guitar or nylon string classical guitar.







All three books feature a range of tunes suitable for late-beginner through intermediate fingerstyle guitarists.  Hal Leonard’s “Fingerpicking Yuletide” features mid-twentieth century tunes like Frosty the Snowman, Jingle Bell Rock, and Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!  Phillips’ “Christmas Carols for Easy Classical Guitar” and Hill’s “Classical Guitar Christmas Sheet Music” both feature traditional Christmas carols like O Come, All Ye Faithful, The First Noel, Jingle Bells, and Silent Night.







Hal Leonard’s “Fingerpicking Yuletide” and Phillips’ “Christmas Carols for Easy Classical Guitar” provide both standard notation and tablature, but Hill’s “Classical Guitar Christmas Sheet Music” provides only standard notation (no TAB!!!).







The arrangements in Phillips’ “Christmas Carols for Easy Classical Guitar” flow really well with nice arpeggiation.  The arrangements in Hill’s “Classical Guitar Christmas Sheet Music” are a mixed bag, but many of them have nice arpeggiation or feature an alternating bass line (Travis picking).  Some of the arrangements are a bit clunky in comparison to the Phillips book.  The arrangements in Hal Leonard’s “Fingerpicking Yuletide” are also a mixed bag, but tend to be a little stripped down/simplified to make them easier.  While some are great as they are, some are a little uninspiring until you add some extra inner harmony, arpeggiation, or other pizzazz.  The arrangements are great for late-beginner/intermediate players, and they are excellent skeletons/frameworks/starting points from which more advanced players can add extra spice.  The arrangements utilize a variety of alternating bass lines and arpeggiation.







Hal Leonard’s “Fingerpicking Yuletide” has 16 tunes.  Phillips’ “Christmas Carols for Easy Classical Guitar” has 22 tunes.  Hill’s “Classical Guitar Christmas Sheet Music” has 30 tunes.







Hal Leonard’s “Fingerpicking Yuletide” is the only book out of the three that has the lyrics written into the music which is nice when playing with friends/family or for helping you to sing the melody out loud or in your head while you are playing solo.







Phillips’ “Christmas Carols for Easy Classical Guitar” is the only book out of the three that comes with recordings of the tunes (mine came with a CD).







All three books are worth buying – it just depends on what you’re looking for.







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







My music is available on all streaming platforms:







Pins on the Map: my third fingerstyle guitar album will be released in January 2024. The first single, "Open Road," was released 10/20/23. Watch it on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/uPBh8sZQsT4?si=EM_wAwnHFqU1VC9C.  Three other singles have since been released: “Lost and Found,” “The Matador,” and “Pins on the Map.”







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