Customer Reviews

Tommy Emmanuel -- Solo Guitar Style (Book & CD)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
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This books blows me away, nothing too hard to get started, nothing too easy to get bored with. Great artist and song background. Highly recommended. Handy spiral bound. Good quality CD. Also, if you haven't checked him out live, DO SO! Travel night and day if you must!

If you're reading this review, you have probably already heard Tommy's music or seen him perform. In this book, which is somewhat of a companion to his DVD "Up Close" but also functions as an outstanding stand-alone book, you not only learn a lot about his songs and how to play them but also a lot about how Tommy became the consumate guitar player and performer that he is. There is excellent background information about the people who created and helped develop this style of guitar playing (Merle Travis, Chet Atkins, Lenny Breau)and the author provides excellent references to the best recorded songs and other learning material available from these other artists as well. For example, the author refers to specific past issues of Frets and Guitar Player magazines in which Chet Atkins describes certain playing techniques.

Outstanding and dead-on advice is also provided about playing and performing in general. For example, Tommy always stresses emphasizing the melody as you play and focusing your passion and expression of the music through the melody rather than just pounding out a lot of notes on the instrument. He describes his practice routine and how he approaches learning a new song.

I will enjoy this book and struggle to master it's content for many years to come. If you're a serious or aspiring finger-style guitar player, you will love this book.

I can't say enough about this book. Great background and history on Tommy's playing. He's known as one of the greatest unknown guitarists on the planet, but this book shows that he has always been VERY well known in guitar circles. This book really lifts the hood on Tommy's playing, so the reader can understand the impact of his many influences. Great snippets on Chet, Django, Jerry Reed, Lenny Breau, just to name a few.

The instruction parts are dynamite as well. Not only are some of his most challenging pieces tabbed out, but there are many exercises to help you build the necessary skills to play Tommy songs. The "independent thumb" exercises were extremely helpful to me personally. I know this book is a bit pricey, but I don't regret the $$$ at all.

I also recommend Mark Hansons "Contemporary Travis Picking" as a supplement. This book got me ready for the more difficult parts of Tommy's book. And kudos for spiral bounding!

At my age and level of ability, I am reasonably certain that this is absolutely the last instructional book that I will ever purchase! Not to worry, but I will spend several years trying to master the level of playing skill contained within this work.
It is a beautiful missive with great background on some of guitars' true heroes.
TE's humanity and patience are reflected in the accompanying CD. This is a must-have for any student of the guitar.
Both independent thumbs way up!

This book is absolutely phenomenal. I hesitated buying it for so long because there were no reviews on it and I did not know what to expect, but Tommy is such a fantastic guitarist that I bit the bullet and ordered. That was a great decision, because this book is a model for how instruction books should be written and presented. Starting with a brief biography on Tommy, it also includes brief bios on guitarists that influenced him and why they did (e.g. Atkins, Travis, Reinhardt). The book starts off with easy thumbstyle exercises for the absolute beginner, but includes difficult sections on cascading harmonics, moving bass lines, and the like. Each section includes not only music (which can be heard on the accompanying CD, complete with verbal explanations from Tommy himself)but also narrative explanations and performance notes. The book closes with suggested listening (for the aforementioned artists that influenced Tommy)and watching (e.g. other instructional videos).

The music is excellent in its variance, i.e. from the very simple to the very complex. It includes some of Tommy's own compositions, but also several arrangements of other songs guitarists would love to add to their repetoire ("Day Tripper/Lady Madonna," "Blue Moon" and "A Taste of Honey," all of which include moving basslines that sound fantastic). Even the spiral binding is great, making it very easy to set up on your music stand, without the need for page-holders. The sole complaint about this book is the fact that the transcriptions come from one of Tommy's instructional videos, while the CD is recorded specially for the book, meaning they don't always match. This is such a minor issue that it's hardly worth mentioning.

Guitarists need this book! If only other teachers would follow this format.

This is not the some of Tommy's music note or Tab book.
It's his biographical book with his sprit of guitar playing and life. The Tab of this book is not easy to follow for beginners, but it has good tips and lessons you might remember all times.
The CD in this book has nicely recored and it's important to listen before you practice the notes.
This book is not good for the first time guitar player or just have some Tab of Tommy's, but if you want to step to some other level of your guitar playing, it has very much value to buy one.