Customer Reviews

The Beatles for Classical Guitar (Guitar Solo)

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

 

 

"The Beatles for Classical Guitar" by Joe Washington contains several standout arrangements that many guitar players would probably enjoy adding to their repertoire. "Can't Buy Me Love" and "Michelle" bounce along with energy and would suit a player interested in Chet Atkins fingerstyle playing. "Yesterday" is a showpiece for a more advanced player without being a show-off piece. It even has a change-of-pace bossa nova style section. "Norwegian Wood" begins with an interesting bass line combined with a repeating tremelo effect using the treble strings. It then shifts to a single note melody backed with bass notes and chords. Then it's all three-note chord melodies with bass notes. The final section repeats the melody utilizing artificial harmonics that aren't too difficult but sound great. The techniques are well explained. The instruction and playing notes are on the pages just before the music for each piece. So the pieces themselves aren't cluttered with instruction notes. Not for beginners. Intermediate and advanced players with find some nice challenges in the book.

I'm not sure how many stars to give because I'm not sure which book the listing is for.

The blurb shows the tune list from volume one of Joe Washington's two-volume "Beatles for Classical Guitar" books that came out in either the late 70's or early 80's and deserve all the praise other reviewers have given them. Interesting, artful arrangements by someone who clearly understood the expressive potential of the nylon-string guitar.

The "Look Inside", however shows an edition of "Beatles for Classical Guitar" arranged by Larry Beekman. With all due respect to Mr. Beekman, while his choice of tunes rivals Joe Washington's, his arranging skill does not.

Beekman's book contains 30 tunes while the listing for Washington's looks like it only includes his volume one. If the listing is in fact for Washington's book, it's a shame they don't bundle the smaller volume two with it.

So which one comes if you order? That's the mystery question. All of these books are notation-only.

If steel-string is your thing, an even more troubling situation exists with "Fingerpicking Beatles", shown as a companion item. The original Amsco edition was by Eric Schoenberg, who was (and hopefully still is) a marvelous ragtime-style player whose Beatles arrangements were completely idiomatic yet rich enough to put the songs across. Unlike Juber, Schoenberg stuck closely to and around standard tuning.

The "revised edition" of "Fingerpicking Beatles" by Hal Leonard is a no-name disaster that appeares to have done by a keyboard player with limited understanding
of the guitar. If you can find a used copy of Schoenberg's original, go for it, otherwise steer clear.

This is NOT the Larry Beekman book (as shown in the "Look Inside" preview), nor is it the Joe Washington book. This is one of "those" Hal Leonard books. The arrangements are accessible for musicians needing to flesh out their gig book or beginning-intermediate students looking for something familiar for study. The credited arranger is John Hill.

The songs are arranged in guitar-friendly tunings and none of the arrangements takes up more than 3 pages, even with the tab. Where there is melody it's clearly delineated. It's helpful that the verse, chorus and bridge sections are labeled. There's some "coda" and DS jumping-about, but that's to be expected with pop songs. I thought it was funny (but helpful) that the arranger clearly pointed-out the "outro" sections.

For what it is, it's a good book. The Beekman and Washington books are better for more advanced players. Those arrangements are more thoroughly developed and more interesting but also more difficult.

Received this book yesterday. After seeing the review about no TAB, was a bit concerned that I was actually going to have to read music again, which while a bit painful at times, would have been OK.
Yes, there is TAB in the book I received and it's a very nice book. I am perhaps an intermediate guitar player (can do quite a few things, but not exceedingly well) and I think given a bit of time well be playing most of these without much trouble. Some are surpisingly simple, yet very nice sounding. Don't be scared off, it's not a Chet Atkins type book.
Glad I got it. Will be a lot of fun. Should be a good one for even more experienced beginners. If you can do basic chord shapes and alternate fingers and thumb on your right hand (if right handed) you'll enjoy.
Terry

This book features some great arrangements of classic Beatles songs. All the songs are written for the advanced player, though a beginner can at least pick out the melodies. Some arrangments have as many as three parts with lots of long position changes, but the good news is that you probably already know the tunes, so this makes picking through the songs much easier. I would have given the product five stars if it had come with a CD featuring the songs as arranged, so that for the songs I don't know as well or for the more complex arrangements I could hear what it was supposed to sound like, but otherwise, this book will give you hours of enjoyable study and some hand-clapping, smiling audience members once you master these great songs.

I am not a Beatles' fan, but a classical guitar one, who enjoys to play it. I found the idea of an arragement of the principal Beatles' hits for classical guitar very good. This field was almost empty. The score is harmonically well made and the design well presented. Highly recommended.

I also received an edition of this book that was not as advertised and arranged by Joe Washington. I received the Hal leonard version by 'Hill'.

It appears to be workable after a cursory glance and going by previosu reviews is suitable as a start up to learn the songs transcribed.

I presume as I am an experienced player I will be able to embellish on the ideas myself by transposing some of the chords and adding my own style to the arrangements.

Possibly a good book to use with my students as well.

Will post further review after I have used the book.

I am a big fan of The Beatles and acoustic fingerstyle guitar. This book should be one of my dream books. It has h 30 songs, musical note staff and guitar tab. However, in my own opinion all music book should have CD companion and tempo number. This book doesn't have ones. For skill level wise this is for intermediate.

I like The Beatles, always have, but their music is not really suited to solo classical guitar. To my ears it seems simple and overly repetitive when played that way. It doesn't do the music justice. The same goes for most pop music by the way. Listen to any decent recorded version "Classical Gas" with orchestra, then learn and play the solo version. The magic is lost. Sorry to be negative. I bought this songbook with high hopes.

My 12 year old son is learning these songs with his classical guitar teacher. She also bought a copy since she enjoyed it as well.