Mel Bay's Complete Chet Atkins Guitar Method [Paperback]

Chet Atkins (Editor), Tommy Flint (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1993

This is an updated edition of Chet Atkin's famous guitar method. It contains numerous picking studies, chord etudes and great Atkin's style guitar solos. Written in notation and tablature.

--This text refers to the Spiral-bound edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 105 pages
• Publisher: Mel Bay Pubns (June 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0871669390
• ISBN-13: 978-0871669391
• Product Dimensions: 11.5 x 8.6 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,195,090 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

59 of 61 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Maybe it's what you need; it's what I need., January 12, 2002

By 

David Stewart "dsjl" (Auburn Hills, MI United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Mel Bay's Complete Chet Atkins Guitar Method (Paperback)

This book has many of the common faults of Mel Bay company's guitar books: It has very little in the way of verbal aid. It's page after page of staffs, notes, etudes, exercises, with no guidance on how to move through them and learn, no advice for example on how to properly do a palm mute (as most of the examples on the CD are played), nor how to coordinate the right hand fingers, etc.

Then there's a superficial fault (also characteristic of many Mel Bay books): It seems way too elementary when you glance through it. When I ordered, I did so guardedly, thinking, "After all the years you've been playing, another elementary method is not what you need. Would Chet Atkins put his name on an elementary method and call it the Chet Atkins Method?" I hoped not.

When I got it and looked through it the first time, I thought, "Hosed again. It's for kids and beginners." Most of the etude songs are traditional or Foster tunes--Streets of Laredo, Marine Hymn, American the Beautiful. But I listened to the disk anyway. And as I did I thought, "Well, I can't play that stuff myself now." So I looked deeper at it, and tried a couple tunes. And found that this is a book I can use.

It has to be something you can use. But if you've ever listened to Chet and thought, "Man, that's so sweet" as he does his thumb-bass pickin', and haven't been able to get it down, this may be for you. I can play typical rock lead and blues lead, but this is something different. The basic technique Chet uses in much of his work is called "Travis picking," after Merle Travis, and that's what this book is all about. ALL about. And that's really a good bit of what I'd want to learn from Chet. (Could anyone ever learn EVERYTHING Chet did?)

So if you're looking for a way to learn THAT--Travis picking, that thumb-bass fingerpicking, this really turns out to be a pretty good book, and worth the time and money. The CD is useful and a good reference, but oddly enough, Travis picking looks simple enough when you read it, and you won't have any trouble without the CD. Most of the tunes will be familiar, and if they're not they're straighforward quarter note stuff, dotted quarter note at the weirdest. (Of course, you have to be able to read music to read that way, and there's a quick primer in the book on it. But don't worry--it's also all in tablature.)

So put the ego away and don't worry too much about the lack of detailed instruction. If you want to Chet-pick, pick this up. If you want more detail, I strongly recommend also "The Art of Solo Fingerpicking," by Mark Hanson. His book is also about Travis picking, but much more detailed in instruction, and more emphasis too on exercises to liberate your digits. Good scores in it, more complex than Chet's book. Start with Chet, read the technique info in Hanson, and proceed to Hanson's music.... now that's a good fingerpicking course!

Edit: By the way, another review of the book says "It is not full of real 'Chet' music though, more a lesson to teach you how to get there." This isn't really true. The tutorial section of the book goes to page 82, and all the study songs and etudes are Chet Atkins style (Travis picking) etudes. Then, the next 23 pages ARE, in fact, transcriptions of songs from Chet's albums: Spanish Fandango (from Alone, 1975), Just As I Am (same album), John Henry (from Hum and Strum Along with Chet Atkins, 1959), Me and Merle (I can't find where this has been recorded--maybe it hasn't; it's not on the CD that comes with this book either; but it's quite a piece), Wimoweh (you'll recognize it as "The Lion Sleeps Tonight"; it's on The RCA Years 2-disc collection, and on Chet Atkins Picks on the Pops, 1969, My Favorite Guitars, 1965, and Finger Pickin' Good, 1973), Liebestraum (from Me and Chet, 1972, with Jerry Reed), Czardas (from Chet Atkins at Home, 1958, and Relaxin' With Chet, 1969), and Yankee Doodle Dixie (from The Best of Chet Atkins, 1964 and four other albums). That's all real Chet music.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Learn to play like Chet Atkins, April 19, 2000

By 

Andrew Cudmore (Scotland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mel Bay's Complete Chet Atkins Guitar Method (Paperback)

This book has done a lot for my playing. It is not full of real 'Chet' music though, more a lesson to teach you how to get there.

You'll need to buy some Chet Atkins song books, such as the one for the Album 'Almost Alone' to really start sounding like the man himself.

Never the less I love Chet and I love this book

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good on music, bad on explaining, April 22, 2006

By 

Kjell (Oslo, Norway) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Mel Bay's Complete Chet Atkins Guitar Method (Paperback)

This is an excellent introduction to the Chet Atkins style with palms muted alternating bass.

There are really a lot of songs arranged in this particular style. The first ones rather easy. The challenge thoug is to get the muffled alternating bass to sound right. I have experimented a lot with amp settings and muting to get it sound right. There is a lot to be said about it, but it is not said in this book. The entire discussion of the subject here is "Muffle the Bass strings with the heel of the right hand", and after that the subject is never again tuched upon. That is the really weak point of the book and the reason for 4 stars rather than 5.

[...]

On the value of the CD I disagree with one of the previous reviewers: the CD is essential. Since the book is poor on explaining how to do it, your ear is the only guide, and the CD demonstrates how this technique sounds when the muted bass i done correctly. It may be argued that you should know from listening to Chet how it is supposed to sound, but then not these particular arrangment and these particular songs. The CD makes it possible to experiment with the muffled bass on the easier songs to get it right. Moreover, there are really a lot of songs, and you can play trough the CD and figure out which one you like and learn them. You do not need to learn all the songs to proceed in the book.

The first 25 pages are elementary stuff, explaining TAB, note values, with some single note melodies. Alternating bass is introduced on page 28, and I guess most players with the ambitions to play like Chet will proceed quickly until that part of the book. Then quite soon there are pieces that - while simple - clearly resembles the style of Chet Atkins, at least when you get the muffled bass right. From then there are lots of nice pieces to choose from in increasing difficulty.

In short it is a good book but you should be prepared to spend some time experimenting to get the muffled bass right, as this is not at all discussed in the book.