A recommendation

[tbeltrans]

From time to time discussion comes up around these parts regarding getting into arranging and/or playing fingerstyle arrangements of a variety of tunes.

I was just digging through some boxes of guitar books and ran across a couple that I think would be useful for folks with these interests to know about. These books are currently available at most music stores that have decent selections of books as well as at amazon (of course...).

The books are the Hal Leonard Fingerpicking series. The arrangements are fairly simple, and therefore quite accessible for those both learning and experienced with playing solo fingerstyle. There is a whole range of these books available from a Beatles collection (Fingerpicking Beatles) to various pop tune collections, Christian tunes, Irish music, jazz standards, and many more.

In addition to learning playable fingerstyle arrangements, these books contain the lead sheet version of the tune with the melody and the chords written above, and then below that the arrangement in both standard notation and TAB in another set of staves.

Since these arrangements are fairly simple, it is easy to see how the arrangement was put together. The problem I had with more advanced arrangements is that so much has been done to fill them out, that it can be difficult to see how it all fits together. To me, it seems best to start simple and then build the arrangement up yourself as you collect various ideas from listening to other people's arrangements.

Here are a few links to get an idea of the series I am talking about:

https://tinyurl.com/3uzw49y9 (Fingerpicking Beatles)

https://tinyurl.com/2p9euuwc (Fingerpicking Country)

https://tinyurl.com/4u9pnz2x (Fingerpicking Standards)

https://tinyurl.com/2p8trhmx (Fingerpicking Pop)

There are many more in the Hal Leonard series and these just give you a taste of what I specifically mentioned.

There are also two collections of 100 tunes each:

https://tinyurl.com/2p82d53s (100 Most Popular Songs for Fingerpicking Guitar)

https://tinyurl.com/y9wus6bn (100 Most Beautiful Songs Ever For Fingerpicking Guitar)

If you learn several of these arrangements (you only need one of these books for that) you will get a sense of how these arrangements are put together fairly quickly.

I hope that this information is helpful to somebody. In my experience, those of us who already play fingerstyle will look at these and just pass them up due to their simplicity, but really, these can be a wealth of information if considered from the perspective I mention here.

Tony

[Andyrondack]

Originally Posted by tbeltrans

From time to time discussion comes up around these parts regarding getting into arranging and/or playing fingerstyle arrangements of a variety of tunes.

I was just digging through some boxes of guitar books and ran across a couple that I think would be useful for folks with these interests to know about. These books are currently available at most music stores that have decent selections of books as well as at amazon (of course...).

The books are the Hal Leonard Fingerpicking series. The arrangements are fairly simple, and therefore quite accessible for those both learning and experienced with playing solo fingerstyle. There is a whole range of these books available from a Beatles collection (Fingerpicking Beatles) to various pop tune collections, Christian tunes, Irish music, jazz standards, and many more.

In addition to learning playable fingerstyle arrangements, these books contain the lead sheet version of the tune with the melody and the chords written above, and then below that the arrangement in both standard notation and TAB in another set of staves.

Since these arrangements are fairly simple, it is easy to see how the arrangement was put together. The problem I had with more advanced arrangements is that so much has been done to fill them out, that it can be difficult to see how it all fits together. To me, it seems best to start simple and then build the arrangement up yourself as you collect various ideas from listening to other people's arrangements.

Here are a few links to get an idea of the series I am talking about:

https://tinyurl.com/3uzw49y9 (Fingerpicking Beatles)

https://tinyurl.com/2p9euuwc (Fingerpicking Country)

https://tinyurl.com/4u9pnz2x (Fingerpicking Standards)

https://tinyurl.com/2p8trhmx (Fingerpicking Pop)

There are many more in the Hal Leonard series and these just give you a taste of what I specifically mentioned.

There are also two collections of 100 tunes each:

https://tinyurl.com/2p82d53s (100 Most Popular Songs for Fingerpicking Guitar)

https://tinyurl.com/y9wus6bn (100 Most Beautiful Songs Ever For Fingerpicking Guitar)

If you learn several of these arrangements (you only need one of these books for that) you will get a sense of how these arrangements are put together fairly quickly.

I hope that this information is helpful to somebody. In my experience, those of us who already play fingerstyle will look at these and just pass them up due to their simplicity, but really, these can be a wealth of information if considered from the perspective I mention here.

Tony

Yes absolutely that sort of thing I find invaluable when learning to arrange, the way I use such material is first to learn the melody by ear then refer to the lead sheet to make sure I haven't made any gaffs then do my own arrangement and see how it differs or is the same as the sugested arrangement, from there I can fill it out more and over time try out alternatives .
Your point is quite right that most guitar arrangements just have too much going on for the novice to see how it was constructed.

[tbeltrans]

Originally Posted by Andyrondack

Yes absolutely that sort of thing I find invaluable when learning to arrange, the way I use such material is first to learn the melody by ear then refer to the lead sheet to make sure I haven't made any gaffs then do my own arrangement and see how it differs or is the same as the sugested arrangement, from there I can fill it out more and over time try out alternatives .
Your point is quite right that most guitar arrangements just have too much going on for the novice to see how it was constructed.

Thanks Andyrondack. Good points all around.

Tony

[godfreydaniel]

Great suggestion. Thanks.

[tbeltrans]

Originally Posted by godfreydaniel

Great suggestion. Thanks.

I sincerely hope that something in that series is helpful for you. I think these books are somewhat of an under appreciated resource. There are certainly better/more sophisticated arrangements around, but these really do connect the dots (so to speak) between the lead sheet provided above and the arrangement just below so we can see exactly how the chords are being connected below the melody.

Tony

[Golffishny]

I read somewhere that you first learn the melody. The add the bass line and lastly fill with chord components where you can. You can make it as simple or complicated as you like, or your skill level allows.

[reeve21]

Thanks for that list, Tony, I didn't realize there were so many.

I'm about half way through the Beatles book. I'm not yet able to make my own arrangements, I'm going through it with my teacher. We listen to the original recordings and work on filling in what is missing or just wrong.

A few of the arrangements are good right out of the box, and he makes just a few changes. Others are clearly missing a whole lot to make it sound musical. Very often the syncopation of the melody is left out and the tune sounds square if played as written. Some are in the original key, some not.

The arrangers are not credited, which may explain the variations.

The melodies are pretty accurate, but the bass is often not and harmony is hit or miss. For example, Eleanor Rigby is done with a John Hurt style alternating bass rather than the droning bass line played the strings in the original, and the iconic bass line in Lady Madonna (the part where Paul goes up the neck) is missing.

I don't mean to be harsh, I think the book is great for someone who already knows what they are doing and wants to use it as a "fake" book, or someone less skilled like me who has a good teacher.

Thanks for your thoughts. I'll probably be buying more of these.

[tbeltrans]

To really get accurate chord changes, go to the original recording of the tune. You can pick up the melody by ear, learn it first as another poster said.

Then, pick up the chords. To me, a good means of doing that is to listen to the bass line first, then once you have the chord, you can hear the chord type by listening to the chords themselves.

Now you can put a bass line under the melody. It doesn't have to be like the record, but at least it can be true to the harmony. Then fill with whatever parts of chord you want in between the bass and melody. Varying the texture is a good idea, so you don't try to put everything in all the time.

Jake Reichbart has a video lesson on the Beatles' "In My Life" and a few others. He talks about playing the melody similar to the way it is sung, which usually involves then syncopating the bass line against it. When he played the bass line as just the roots of the chords, I compared what he was doing against the Hal Leonard Beatles Fakebook and found that the fakebook was missing a number of the chords that give the song its true character. They left these out probably for simplicity. So I went back to the original recording by the Beatles, and sure enough, all the chords Jake was using were there. So it is clear to me that eventually you have to get the real thing from the original recording by ear. Of course, you have to be able to really hear the recording to do it, but that is relative pitch which is a skill and not something we are born with. In short, anybody can learn to do it just by doing it - a lot. Fortunately, those of us who learned to play guitar prior to the internet and all the TAB books, largely did so by ear off recordings.

Where I think the series of books I recommended comes in, is serving as a starting point since the arrangements are so simple. As I had mentioned previously, when you start with a fully baked arrangement, it can be difficult to pick it apart as a learning tool. Of course, in these books, the key picked for the tune is based on making an easy arrangement rather than being true to the original recording.

Even when you get the melody, bass line, and chords from the original recording, you will often want to transpose it to a more guitar friendly key to make it more manageable.

As Joe Pass used to say, if you have to work at it to play it, the audience has to work at it to listen to it. You want it to flow smoothly in the end.

Tony

[reeve21]

Originally Posted by tbeltrans

T
Jake Reichbart has a video lesson on the Beatles' "In My Life" and a few others. He talks about playing the melody similar to the way it is sung, which usually involves then syncopating the bass line against it. When he played the bass line as just the roots of the chords, I compared what he was doing against the Hal Leonard Beatles Fakebook and found that the fakebook was missing a number of the chords that give the song its true character. They left these out probably for simplicity. So I went back to the original recording by the Beatles, and sure enough, all the chords Jake was using were there. So it is clear to me that eventually you have to get the real thing from the original recording by ear. Of course, you have to be able to really hear the recording to do it, but that is relative pitch which is a skill and not something we are born with. In short, anybody can learn to do it just by doing it - a lot. Fortunately, those of us who learned to play guitar prior to the internet and all the TAB books, largely did so by ear off recordings.


Tony

Tony, thanks for those tips. It is easier to read it than do it, but I know I've got to start somewhere. Being married to tab gets old.....

With regard to "In My Life"-- I'm working on that one now. I'll take a look for that lesson you mention. The book has it in a different key than the recording. My teacher wrote his own arrangement from the recording in the original key--much harder to play, but it really sounds good

[tbeltrans]

Originally Posted by reeve21

Tony, thanks for those tips. It is easier to read it than do it, but I know I've got to start somewhere. Being married to tab gets old.....

With regard to "In My Life"-- I'm working on that one now. I'll take a look for that lesson you mention. The book has it in a different key than the recording. My teacher wrote his own arrangement from the recording in the original key--much harder to play, but it really sounds good

This is Jake Reichbart:



...and his lessons are here:

https://www.jakereichbart.com/guitar...r-lessons.html

I am not specifically suggesting you take any of his lessons since that may not be the musical direction you want to go (i.e. restaurant gig repertoire and styling) but it was interesting to hear the tune with the right chords included.

Edit: I should add that Jake's lessons are videos only (no written material), between 90 and 120 minutes in length. Each video deals with just one tune, going into real depth showing not only how he plays it in the youtube video, but also many variations of a given part of it. These are dense lessons that you take slowly, a bit at a time. It isn't so much learning to just parrot what he did in the youtube performance, but instead how to make it your own. He doesn't like providing written material because he feels that would limit him and the student to just playing it one way all the time.

To get anything out of these videos, you should be comfortable with the various chord forms up and down the fretboard and know something about how music works. He does have some lessons on harmony and arranging that would be helpful. Anyway, Jake has now over 500 performance videos on his youtube channel and can arrange pretty much anything in his style. He does a lot of R & B, Steely Dan, standards, etc. He has been playing the same solo guitar gig for over 25 years at an upscale restaurant, and brings a really broad repertoire to those gigs. The lessons are essentially how he does it.

Tony

[reeve21]

Originally Posted by tbeltrans

This is Jake Reichbart:



...and his lessons are here:

https://www.jakereichbart.com/guitar...r-lessons.html

I am not specifically suggesting you take any of his lessons since that may not be the musical direction you want to go (i.e. restaurant gig repertoire and styling) but it was interesting to hear the tune with the right chords included.

Edit: I should add that Jake's lessons are videos only (no written material), between 90 and 120 minutes in length. Each video deals with just one tune, going into real depth showing not only how he plays it in the youtube video, but also many variations of a given part of it. These are dense lessons that you take slowly, a bit at a time. It isn't so much learning to just parrot what he did in the youtube performance, but instead how to make it your own. He doesn't like providing written material because he feels that would limit him and the student to just playing it one way all the time.

To get anything out of these videos, you should be comfortable with the various chord forms up and down the fretboard and know something about how music works. He does have some lessons on harmony and arranging that would be helpful. Anyway, Jake has now over 500 performance videos on his youtube channel and can arrange pretty much anything in his style. He does a lot of R & B, Steely Dan, standards, etc. He has been playing the same solo guitar gig for over 25 years at an upscale restaurant, and brings a really broad repertoire to those gigs. The lessons are essentially how he does it.

Tony

Thanks again, Tony. For anyone following along here is some info on the "general lessons" that might be a good place to start. The samples are free.

General method lessons:

1) How To Arrange Any Song For Solo Guitar, whatever song-specific lessons you intend to purchase, this unique 2-hour lesson will help you with any and all solo guitar arrangements, click here for a free sample: Jake Reichbart DVD Lesson Excerpts: How To Arrange Any Song For Solo Guitar

2) An Introduction to Fingerstyle Guitar and solo guitar arranging, this brand new, 2020, monster lesson (two hours and 40 minutes) is the companion to the above “How to Arrange lesson”. While the former focuses heavily on harmony, this new lesson approaches the fingerstyle aspect in great depth with many examples and exercises. A PDF index/content for both lessons is available, just ask! Click right here for a lengthy free sample: An introduction to fingerstyle guitar and solo guitar arranging

[tbeltrans]

Originally Posted by reeve21

Thanks again, Tony. For anyone following along here is some info on the "general lessons" that might be a good place to start. The samples are free.

General method lessons:

1) How To Arrange Any Song For Solo Guitar, whatever song-specific lessons you intend to purchase, this unique 2-hour lesson will help you with any and all solo guitar arrangements, click here for a free sample: Jake Reichbart DVD Lesson Excerpts: How To Arrange Any Song For Solo Guitar

2) An Introduction to Fingerstyle Guitar and solo guitar arranging, this brand new, 2020, monster lesson (two hours and 40 minutes) is the companion to the above “How to Arrange lesson”. While the former focuses heavily on harmony, this new lesson approaches the fingerstyle aspect in great depth with many examples and exercises. A PDF index/content for both lessons is available, just ask! Click right here for a lengthy free sample: An introduction to fingerstyle guitar and solo guitar arranging

Be aware that the PDF simply provides a content list so you can find a particular subject in the lesson. These do not contain TABs or other information. I think these lessons are really good, very in depth. However, they are very dense with information and it will take several times through to ingest it all. Also, none of the song lessons contain any accompanying PDF.

My suggestion is to watch the whole thing one time through to get a birds-eye sense of what you will be learning, and then take it just a bit at a time, making sure you watch that bit with guitar in hand. It may be a good idea to use software such as Transcribe! or the Open Source VLC so you can loop a specific section and even slow it down while watching it.

One thing about Jake Reichbart's lessons is that you are learning a pro-level of playing tunes, while the book series I initially recommended (with a specific reason in mind) are decidedly amateurish. The "amateurish" aspect of those books is perfect for first learning how arrangements go together. Jake's lessons are teaching stuff that you can take on a solo guitar gig in a restaurant. Maybe even nursing homes and hospitals might enjoy Jake's styling as background music.

The cool thing about Jake's approach is that, as all his youtube performances demonstrate, he can arrange and play most anything. Many approaches to guitar are more suitable for some styles and not others and you typically have a memorized arrangement.

With Jake's approach, you can either figure out the tune by ear and then arrange from that as he does, or take it out of a fakebook in real time and, either way, never have to play it the same way all the time like you do with a memorized arrangement.

Of course, you may get that irritating "you play guitar, why don't you sing?" (not so much in a restaurant where background music is the whole idea, but in a nursing home or hospital where you are front and center as THE entertainment).

Jake did make a couple of books for Hal Leonard. As I recall, one is Christmas tunes and the other probably standards, each has a DVD. These have TAB and the lessons simply show you how to "wiggle your fingers" to play the exact tune as in the TAB. These do not represent Jake's normal teaching style.

Tony

[BluesKing777]

Originally Posted by tbeltrans

From time to time discussion comes up around these parts regarding getting into arranging and/or playing fingerstyle arrangements of a variety of tunes.

I was just digging through some boxes of guitar books and ran across a couple that I think would be useful for folks with these interests to know about. These books are currently available at most music stores that have decent selections of books as well as at amazon (of course...).

The books are the Hal Leonard Fingerpicking series. The arrangements are fairly simple, and therefore quite accessible for those both learning and experienced with playing solo fingerstyle. There is a whole range of these books available from a Beatles collection (Fingerpicking Beatles) to various pop tune collections, Christian tunes, Irish music, jazz standards, and many more.

In addition to learning playable fingerstyle arrangements, these books contain the lead sheet version of the tune with the melody and the chords written above, and then below that the arrangement in both standard notation and TAB in another set of staves.

Since these arrangements are fairly simple, it is easy to see how the arrangement was put together. The problem I had with more advanced arrangements is that so much has been done to fill them out, that it can be difficult to see how it all fits together. To me, it seems best to start simple and then build the arrangement up yourself as you collect various ideas from listening to other people's arrangements.

Here are a few links to get an idea of the series I am talking about:

https://tinyurl.com/3uzw49y9 (Fingerpicking Beatles)

https://tinyurl.com/2p9euuwc (Fingerpicking Country)

https://tinyurl.com/4u9pnz2x (Fingerpicking Standards)

https://tinyurl.com/2p8trhmx (Fingerpicking Pop)

There are many more in the Hal Leonard series and these just give you a taste of what I specifically mentioned.

There are also two collections of 100 tunes each:

https://tinyurl.com/2p82d53s (100 Most Popular Songs for Fingerpicking Guitar)

https://tinyurl.com/y9wus6bn (100 Most Beautiful Songs Ever For Fingerpicking Guitar)

If you learn several of these arrangements (you only need one of these books for that) you will get a sense of how these arrangements are put together fairly quickly.

I hope that this information is helpful to somebody. In my experience, those of us who already play fingerstyle will look at these and just pass them up due to their simplicity, but really, these can be a wealth of information if considered from the perspective I mention here.

Tony

Not too old a thread to reply to......

Anyone know who actually does the work? Fingerpicking arrangements, music sheets/tabs? A lot of work to save us all that! I can't see it listed anywhere. Not a bad job for a guitarist somewhere, whoever does it? Maybe a Tin Pan Alley type of work arrangement but it seems consistently like one arranger to me.

I have some of the smaller books from a few years back, but recently bought the 100 Most Popular Songs For Fingerpicking. It is a terrific book, enough for me to order the next - 100 Most Beautiful Songs For Fingerpicking.

Kudos for the bookbinding on the 100 book - some kind of double binding and the right paper that allows the pages to lay flat with a small amount of help. Well done, Hal L! I have some other pure evil books that need two capos and 5 pegs and 3 hair clips etc to hold a page open on my stand.....

This is let down a little by economics of book making - 2 page arrangements starting on the right page instead of putting a blank to enable the whole thing on left and right....I don't care really, but have seen other books do this properly but mostly with dreaded comb binding.

Anyway, I like to play a variety of things apart from blues fingerpicking - I learned music when I was a kid and enjoy playing the melody line and extracting something more out of the acoustic - get the box singing. A fairly simple fingerpicking arrangement for 100 various tunes is ideal for sitting and learning a few new ones, play the ones you have done, then I vere off road to improvising things and whatever takes my fancy. I also sing, so appreciate the chords/lyrics/arrangements for a strum and a sing!

I look forward to the next 100!


P.S. I have been looking up the songs I have never heard of on Youtube - interesting!


BluesKing777.

[tbeltrans]

Originally Posted by BluesKing777

Not too old a thread to reply to......

Anyone know who actually does the work? Fingerpicking arrangements, music sheets/tabs? A lot of work to save us all that! I can't see it listed anywhere. Not a bad job for a guitarist somewhere, whoever does it? Maybe a Tin Pan Alley type of work arrangement but it seems consistently like one arranger to me.

I have some of the smaller books from a few years back, but recently bought the 100 Most Popular Songs For Fingerpicking. It is a terrific book, enough for me to order the next - 100 Most Beautiful Songs For Fingerpicking.

Kudos for the bookbinding on the 100 book - some kind of double binding and the right paper that allows the pages to lay flat with a small amount of help. Well done, Hal L! I have some other pure evil books that need two capos and 5 pegs and 3 hair clips etc to hold a page open on my stand.....

This is let down a little by economics of book making - 2 page arrangements starting on the right page instead of putting a blank to enable the whole thing on left and right....I don't care really, but have seen other books do this properly but mostly with dreaded comb binding.

Anyway, I like to play a variety of things apart from blues fingerpicking - I learned music when I was a kid and enjoy playing the melody line and extracting something more out of the acoustic - get the box singing. A fairly simple fingerpicking arrangement for 100 various tunes is ideal for sitting and learning a few new ones, play the ones you have done, then I vere off road to improvising things and whatever takes my fancy. I also sing, so appreciate the chords/lyrics/arrangements for a strum and a sing!

I look forward to the next 100!


P.S. I have been looking up the songs I have never heard of on Youtube - interesting!


BluesKing777.

Good point. I have no idea who does all that arranging, but have wondered that myself from time to time. Maybe Hal Leonard has staff to do it or maybe a couple of contract workers on call?

Tony

[BluesKing777]

Originally Posted by tbeltrans

Good point. I have no idea who does all that arranging, but have wondered that myself from time to time. Maybe Hal Leonard has staff to do it or maybe a couple of contract workers on call?

Tony

It probably comes under that old song: Nice Job If You Can Get It!
But they probably are low paid like all musos....

I had a quick play through some of the smaller books in your list I had bought years back ...city, lunch, walk, music shop! There is a fair bit of doubling up with some titles and some glaring omissions as well I suppose. I think the 100 songs format gives the whole thing a bit more direction.
The last lot I bought with Christmas gift vouchers, waited til mid Jan to order...but the next lot I bought with..... gasp.......my own money!

BluesKing777.