Customer Reviews

The Art of Solo Fingerpicking : How to Play Alternating-Bass Fingerstyle Guitar Solos (book and CD) (Guitar Books)

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is Vol. 2 of Mark Hanson's "The Art of Travis-Style Picking," one of the best starter manuals for would-be fingerpickers, and it picks up where that excellent book/CD left off. Most of the compositions are by Hanson; if you love Fahey, Kottke, Ackerman, de Grassi, etc. and wouldn't mind learning how to play like that, this is your ticket. The two David Blakeley numbers are also quite fine, as are arrangements of Libby Cotten's "Freight Train" and John Renbourn's version of "White House Blues." I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

I thought this book/CD combination was a great teacher, and just about right for my playing ability (intermediate). I found about 50% of the material to be allready familiar and 50% new. And there were a couple of places that I actually disagreed with his fingering choices (nobody plays the guitar the same way, so we should only adopt the teacher/author content that makes us better individual players - not "correct" players). But more importantly, this book forced me to face up to some bad playing habits I've used for 20+ years. I had to take a couple of months worth of steps backward to change in one case, but I expect substantial benefits in the long run. This is a very good teaching book, and I recommend it to everybody above complete beginner. Those players who know at least 30 chords can tackle this book, because most of the songs are only difficult to play at concert pace.

I gave the book 4 stars, but 4 1/2 would have been more accurate. My only complaint is that the book is somewhat thin on content: explanations, photos and exercises. Mark Hanson also says little about the underlying musicology in the examples (modes, triads, key signatures, time etc.). There is a lot of white space on some pages, while p 26 is used for a photo of a church (?). I kind of get the feeling that the author wants to sell as many books as possible, and holds back from including everything we need. There are several references to his other books.

But to finish on a positive note, the extensive artist/song list in "Appendix C - People to Hear" is excellent. You can be sure that some of your favorites are included, and that some suggestions will be new to you.

I had been a student of the guitar as a teen, and through college. I was fortunate enough to have chosen to study classical guitar, which I continue to maintain is the best foundation for a fingerstyle guitarist (just learning not to rest any part of your hand--the little finger is the biggest culprit--on the face of the guitar does wonders for your technique).

I ceased playing for some time, then in my early thirties I wanted to begin playing again, and having only a twelve-string acoustic guitar at the time I decided that "fingerpicking" would be fun to try.

I found this book in a guitar shop in Oklahoma City--different cover, and the accompanying cassette was missing; I didn't even realize that it was supposed to be part of the purchase until some time later.

However, it opened up a whole new world to me despite my classical guitar foundation. I am fortunate to be able to read music--sightreading is a struggle but I can slowly come up to speed after a few times going through the piece. I can say in comparison to the typical classical guitar piece that the notation and fingerings are terrific. One can tell that Mr. Hanson is accomplished in guitar pedagogy.

Like an earlier reviewer, I still play several of the pieces here including Hanson's original compositions, some fifteen years later. I still drag the book out from time to time to "relearn" pieces I've forgotten. Hanson does a fabulous job of presenting a representative variety of "Travis picking" styles both in his own music and his transcriptions of Renbourn, Martin Simpson, Elizabeth Cotten and others.

In fact, I would heartily recommend ANY of Mr. Hanson's books. I have several including his masterful transcriptions of works by Leo Kottke, and his Christmas Guitar books. He is a fine teacher, a very good writer and a fine artist. He is probably THE single most influential guitar pedagogist for me, and I would snap up anything with his name on it.

I have spent a lot of time searching for a non-classical fingerstyle guitar book and this is the one! It helps gradually to learn this style with wonderful excercices and music pieces.
Is is easy to follow and then you realize that your guitar level is higher. I do not recommend this book for beginners but for intermediate guitarists who love to play solo guitar.

I bought this book about fifteen years ago, and can say that I never found a more useful instruction book. I started with the companion Travis Picking book (which should be essential reading for any beginning guitarist) then proceeded to this solo style book.

The tunes are amazing - which is rare for an instruction book. The originals and traditional songs are both challenging and entertaining. I still play 4-5 tracks and always get a positive response from musicians of all levels.

I can't say enough about how this book helped me develop as a guitar player. You can pick up a few of my albums here at Amazon (really!), and I doubt I could say that without this book.

Many of the other reviews have said it first, but Mark Hanson has created an excellent series of finger picking lesson books.

The Art of Solo Fingerpicking is an intermediate fingerpicking book. If you can only strum a few chords or are new to fingertyle, start off with Mark's The Art of Contemporary Travis Style Picking first and then come back to this one.

The exercises (in both books) are excellent and reinforced by the songs. The exercises are difficult enough to challenge but easy enough so you don't get frustrated. I found myself playing things that I never thought I could play in a very short period of time.

The songs are challenging and excellent. But again, they are not too difficult to frustrate you.

I am an intermediate player and have purchased many lesson books over the years. NONE have taken my guitar or mandolin playing as far as the Mark Hanson finger picking series. I am very critical of my playing. Quite often after a practice session with this book, I find a big smile on my face and say to myself "Did I just play that?"

This book was quite a challenge. I went through the Art of Contemporary Travis Picking rather quickly (by quickly, I mean several months, so this may not be quick to some) so I figured this "sequel" would go by in a similar fashion but this really ups the ante. As a result, the pieces you will learn are much more satisfying to play and listen to. I highly recommend starting with the aforementioned book because most of the picking patterns and special techniques learned there are taken for granted in this book and may add to the learning curve. Believe me, you don't want to be worrying about performing a hammer-on or slur while maintaining rhythm to a variation on the outside-in travis pattern. You will have enough on your plate! You can start with just this book if you're willing to work harder in the beginning.

I like how Mark makes direct references to specific artists, such as Leo Kottke and John Renbourn, and demonstrates some of their contemporary techniques through examples and songs. Some topics discussed are right and left-hand damping, using the thumb to play melody, playing scales (major and chromatic), using harmonics, alternate tunings, rolls (playing 3 to 5 strings in succession and spacing the picking evenly over a beat) and increasing overall speed via effective hammer-on and pull-off techniques (the essence of how the final piece, Strawberry Curl, is played).

The book is not easy, but very little in life that's worth doing is easy. I spent months on the first 9 to 10 pages, but once things started to click, the rest of the book began to go by faster. Once I gained good, relaxed control and coordination on the first song and the following pages of exercises (especially playing a major scale while playing the alternating bass) I was able to make very steady progress but that was a hurdle to overcome. "Devil's Dream" took me some time because of the need to alternate rapidly between the index and middle fingers in the treble while maintaining the alternating bass. But once that control was there, it remained, and I was able to apply it to other pieces I was working on.

Pay attention to the suggested fingerings and always try all ways if more than one is presented. I can easily wrap my thumb onto the 6th string, so I will tend to do that when it makes the overall fingering easier (much to the dismay of classical guitar teachers everywhere).

After working through this book about halfway, I was able to manage some pieces from Fingerstyle Magazine (an achievement in my eyes!) and going into alternate tunings is no longer a scary concept. Traversing the neck to bizarre chord forms, while still not always easy, becomes easier to deal with and something that you accept as normal at this level of playing.

By the way, when you finish this book, you will have some excellent show-off material in your repertoire. My favorite songs are Flier and Strawberry Curl (in Double Drop-D tuning). I heard Mark perform "Flier" this summer when I attended his annual fingerstyle guitar seminar and I made it one of my goals to play a duet on this song with him next summer (if I am able to go back) during the student recital (maybe even at normal tempo!).

For me, this book/CD raised the bar for all guitar instruction. I'm actually a pretty decent fingerstyle player now, and it is because of this book. I still have a way to go, and I'm still only a little more than half way through, but this book has taken me SO FAR with my playing. The progression of exercises is very natural; don't move on until you feel comfortable with an exercise, and then come back to it once in a while.



Proceeding along, you get to the first actual "song", Red White and Blue Rag. I still play this one almost every time I pick up my guitar! The tab itself is the best I have EVER seen, with fingering notation in many places. The CD is a great inspiration, and the slow versions of the tunes are indispensable.



I found out about this book from a recommendation on the "Unofficial Martin Guitar Forum", with glowing words from a long line of very experienced players. I gambled and bought it, and I'm a much better player now because of it. Seriously, if you want to get better at fingerstyle playing, this is the book.

This is a great method book for learning to play solo fingerstyle arrangements. I bought this at the same time that I bought Mark Hanson's "Contemporary Travis Picking" but it took me a long time to cross the gap between the two books. "Contemporary Travis Picking" may be the best book for the very basics of fingerstyle guitar. Even at the end of that book, there are songs which are much more challenging than the rest of that book, and those songs ("The Water is Wide", "Hesitation Blues") are a good lead-in to this book.

In this book, Hanson breaks the reader out of the patterns that are taught in the earlier book. But to me it really necessary to take extra time and learn as much material as I could to master the patterns. Even the stuff at the very beginning of this book was too hard for me for a while. So I put this book down and came back to it several months later.

When I did get back to this book I found that it continued the excellence of the Travis picking book. There are plenty of exercises to develop the techniques. The songs are really really well arranged and very satisfying to play.

The thing in this book that is pretty telling to me is that Hanson congratulates you at quite a few points. Eg at the end of one excercise he says "Congratulations, you are well on your way to becoming a top Travis picker" or something like that. And he's not kidding, this book gets you far beyond routine things.

This is a great instructional manual. Full of enjoyable drills and some nice pieces to play. Streets ahead of just about anything I have seen. The CD is a fantastic option. The 80 page book contains pieces in tablature and musical notation and Mark plays each piece through slowly and then at a faster tempo. It's tough going alright, but I am enjoying it. Not exactly for beginners, but for those of us who want something better to do with their thumb (heheh), this is the book to buy. Highly Recommended.