Customer Reviews

Fingerpicking Beatles (Catalog #699404))

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

 

 

I must say the fingerpicking of "Yesterday" is good and some of the ryhthm progressions for some of the other songs "Hey Jude", "Something", "While My Guitar Gently Weeps",etc. are good, the book doesn't offer more than that. Most of the fingerpicking is drab and more of chord progressions than true fingerpicking style. I'll rate this book at mediocre if you don't have the chord progressions for these songs, want a good fingerstyle of yesterday and get a good low price. Enjoy!

I hear what the other reviewers say, but I think they are being too critical of this work. It's not aimed at experienced players who have been gigging for years. This is all aimed at a player who has been doing fingerstyle for 6 months to a year and it won't challenge the advanced player at all. And as such the arrangements are easy to play and don't have harp effects, or any fingerpicking specialties. It's a learner's book.

So if you've played for a while now and want to move up to something that will sound OK, then this is the book. These arrangements are slightly harder than the Fingerpicking series from Hal Leonard by about one grade. Hal Leonard is about grade 3-5 and this book is 4-6 level. (I'm a guitar teacher so that grading is more based on what I see students practicing and playing, than a technical measurement of note values per bar and tempo etc.).

If you want to get into Fingerstyle this book would definitely be on the list, together with Hal Leonard's Fingerpicking StandardsFingerpicking Standards: 17 Songs Arranged for Solo Guitar in Standard Notation and Tablature, 30 Easy Spanish Guitar Solos30 Easy Spanish Guitar Solos (Book & CD), Travis Picking by Mark HansonThe Art of Contemporary Travis Picking: How to Play the Alternating Bass Fingerpicking Style (Bk & CD) and lastly the Fingerpicking method books by Alfred PublishingBeginning Fingerstyle Guitar (Book & Cd) (Complete Fingerstyle Guitar Method). Those are the ones I use mostly with my students. You can add the Chet Atkins method for some 'Thumb-style' as well.Mel Bay's Complete Chet Atkins Guitar Method

This is a great collection of classic Beatles tunes, with wonderful and accurate arrangements by Fred Sokolow. 20 wonderful songs: And I Love Her, Come Together, Eight Days A Week, Eleanor Rigby, Girl, Here Comes The Sun, Here There And Everywhere, Hey Jude, If I Fell, In My Life, Let It Be, Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds, Michelle, Norwegian Wood, Something, Strawberry Fields Forever, When I'm Sixty-Four, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, With A Little Help From My Friends, and Yesterday. All the songs are easy to learn (especially if you already know them well, which I hope you do) and fun to play, even for a beginner like me.

It's an OK starting point to spur your own imagination as to fingerpicking arrangements for these songs.

I agree with some of the other comments. I have no doubt that the arrangements are accurate, and some of the arrangements are rhythmically good, but they are otherwise disappointing. I do occasional solo gigs, and was looking for some good Beatles arrangements. I respect the author for his musical knowledge, but either he is not great at arranging for fingerstyle guitar, or he had some other objective in mind (or I'm just out to lunch).

great book for the Beatles fan. I am a beginning finger style guitarist and it is perfect for me.