Best intermediate fingerstyle learning

[Arthur Blake]

Here's one from left field so to speak...

Consider classical music on steel string. If you can find music that moves you, that's the key.

Started out playing only ragtime blues finger style and still enjoy it very much, but found some really timeless classical pieces that I find myself playing even more.

Some examples - mostly all from YouTube, often I find several arrangements, then put together my own version -- and I'm not shy about improvising endings or beginnings I like better.

It just broadens your abilities, the music can be very moving, beautiful and timeless, too. I play the pieces with a lot of feeling.

Some examples: Bach Boureé, Matteo Carcassi - Caprice in Dm, John Renbourne’s Earl of Salisbury, Bach - Air on a G string, and Michael Chapdelaine's version of Romanza. Also purchased his TAB for Lagrima.

I also sometimes have to just develop my own arrangements for music I want to play and can’t find, or can’t find an arrangement I want to play — “As time goes by” for example, Charlie Chaplin, “Smile” is another. I added a creative ending with a melody line moving to a diminished chord resolving into a major chord up the fingerboard.

[BobbyBadd]

My favorite site is

www.licknriff.com

Great songs, great teaching, so-so tabs, but good enough to learn from.

And its free!

[Woolbury]

Originally Posted by Arthur Blake

Here's one from left field so to speak...

Consider classical music on steel string. If you can find music that moves you, that's the key.

Started out playing only ragtime blues finger style and still enjoy it very much, but found some really timeless classical pieces that I find myself playing even more.

Some examples - mostly all from YouTube, often I find several arrangements, then put together my own version -- and I'm not shy about improvising endings or beginnings I like better.

It just broadens your abilities, the music can be very moving, beautiful and timeless, too. I play the pieces with a lot of feeling.

Some examples: Bach Boureé, Matteo Carcassi - Caprice in Dm, John Renbourne’s Earl of Salisbury, Bach - Air on a G string, and Michael Chapdelaine's version of Romanza. Also purchased his TAB for Lagrima.

I also sometimes have to just develop my own arrangements for music I want to play and can’t find, or can’t find an arrangement I want to play — “As time goes by” for example, Charlie Chaplin, “Smile” is another. I added a creative ending with a melody line moving to a diminished chord resolving into a major chord up the fingerboard.

Nice ideas. I played Bouree at a wedding years back, love to get back into that!

[PetesaHut]

Originally Posted by Ed66

As previously mentioned Guitar Nick is a good sight. Two others are Dan C. Holloway's site https://www.dancholloway.com/ and Kelly Valleau's site https://www.kellyvalleau.com/

Dan's site is good since it breaks down songs by complexity -- so you don't necessarily bite off too much at once. He's also got quite a list of songs, all of which have tab and video lessons, although the video lessons are done at a fairly high level and really are meant as a support for the tabs -- unless you are a relatively advanced player.

Kelly's site focuses on his fingerstyle takes on generally newer music. Some can be quite complex. I recently finished "cleaning up" his version of Bon Jovi's "Dead or Alive" and it took me several months from beginning to end.

I am a member of Kellie's lessons where he provides the videos where he shows you how play the songs he has provided, but I don't see any videos where he shows how to learn fingerstyle unless I have missed something?

[Ed66]

I just grab songs from the Store section. It's predominantly fingerstyle stuff, with some occasional strumming, at least based on the songs I've looked at and purchased. You just pay by the song, but he's put some decent work into converting/transposing the full song for guitar so I have no problem with that. My approach has always been - at least after the first few months of learning chords,etc. - to learn by the song. I figured that I would pick up theory as I go and make sure I enjoyed each day. It's worked for 4 years so I'm sticking with it.

[joelhunn]

Look up Richard Gilewitz. He has lessons on trufire as well as Skype individual lessons. I've been doing Skype lessons with Richard for about 4 months and my playing is improving by leaps and bounds.

[tbeltrans]

This is a very good course, very well organized into lessons and Steve Krenz is an excellent teacher. You will get a wide exposure to various ways to play fingerstyle guitar, including arranging for solo guitar, open tunings, etc.

You will have the whole thing on DVDs, so you can refer back to it as often as you like. You will be learning how to put tunes together for solo guitar, rather than only learning how to play tunes somebody else arranged.


https://www.learnandmaster.com/spotl...rstyle-guitar/

Learn and Master will periodically have sales so you can get the course at a discount. If you google on the course, you may find other places that sell it for less. Our local Guitar Centers stock it, so it is possible you may find it locally too.

Tony

[BreezySounds]

Mark Hanson's books are really systematic and the arrangements are high quality. I personally learn a lot better from sheet music than from videos...

1) The Art of Contemporary Travis Picking
2) The Art of Solo Fingerpicking

Working through those in this order has given me solid foundations to become a reasonably accomplished fingerstyle player.

[SprintBob]

Originally Posted by BreezySounds

Mark Hanson's books are really systematic and the arrangements are high quality. I personally learn a lot better from sheet music than from videos...

1) The Art of Contemporary Travis Picking
2) The Art of Solo Fingerpicking

Working through those in this order has given me solid foundations to become a reasonably accomplished fingerstyle player.

+1 here, I followed the same path and just finishing Art of Solo Fingerstyle. Mark’s arrangements in each book progress from relatively easy to advanced. ASF was just re-released to commemorate it’s 30th year.

[AZ715]

I was in the same boat a year ago, looking for fingerstyle lessons for a guitar player (me) who was used to chording only. I'd done a lot of what I refer to as fingerpicking (patterns) but just couldn't seem to get the knack of an independent thumb. I tried some books and a large number of websites, and then I settled on Dan Holloway's instructional site.

Dan ranks his songs from Level I to VI, depending on degree of difficulty, and there is a huge selection of songs. I began playing level I and II songs, and then I'd try playing III and IV, just for the heck of it (and without much luck.) A year later, I'm playing levels IV and V, albeit with much practice required. Still....his lessons are working for me.

I do need to add, though, that he offers few playing lessons focused on techniques per se. They are predominately focused on how to play a song. As you learn more songs, you learn more techniques.

Whatever you choose, you won't regret learning fingerstyle. It's a lot of fun, and very rewarding.

[elementarymusic]

Thanks all! Just listened to Holloway's covers on Youtube...he's amazing!! I thhnk I'll start with his site...

[reeve21]

Originally Posted by BreezySounds

Mark Hanson's books are really systematic and the arrangements are high quality. I personally learn a lot better from sheet music than from videos...

1) The Art of Contemporary Travis Picking
2) The Art of Solo Fingerpicking

Working through those in this order has given me solid foundations to become a reasonably accomplished fingerstyle player.

I also got started with these books based on advice from Sprint Bob and others on AGF. Highly recommended. Also have done some video stuff of Toby Walker's and a few others, but I seem to learn better from printed material.

After self teaching with the Hanson materials for about 7 months I found an instructor. We have been working through the Mel Bay Anthology of Fingerstyle Guitar by Tommy Flint for over a year now. I think this book is pretty old (based on style and the photos), and Tommy passed away a year or two back at a ripe old age. He starts out at the very beginning, so we jumped in about a third of the way through. His method is to take it genre by genre, and to start out each section with exercises that lead you into songs in that style. Many of the a compositions are his own, or his arrangements of standards. I've gone through a whole lot of folk tunes, standards, blues and am currently working on ragtime.

I've never seen anyone else mention this book, but now that I'm almost through it I can say that I have learned a lot, and really improved my technique. But I think it works best with an instructor who can demonstrate stuff as needed (no CD or audio link) and tell you what to emphasize. My instructor also rearranged a few of the tunes to flesh out the harmony and make them more interesting/challenging. I'm just not sure I would have had the discipline to plow through it on my own.

Has anyone else had experience with this book?

https://www.amazon.com/Mel-Bay-Antho.../dp/0871665174

There is an interesting bio of Tommy found at the link as well.