A Complete Guide with Step-by-Step Lessons and 36 Great Fingerstyle Songs - Book Review

Fingerstyle technique is one of the most exciting ways to play the guitar. It’s a technique that will enable you to turn the guitar into a complete solo instrument playing several different parts at the same time. If you’ve been looking for an easy to follow fingerstyle guitar course, than the “Fingerstyle Guitar Method: A Complete Guide With Step-by-Step Lessons and 36 Great Fingerstyle Songs” from Hal Leonard Publication would be a good book worth checking out.

Although the book is not for the complete beginner, it does start off with a topic on how to choose a guitar before moving on to fingerpicking basic and builds on them using the styles of great artists such as The Beatles, Paul Simon, James Taylor, Adrian Legg, and many others as examples. Lessons on fingerstyle solo guitar arrangement are broken down into two parts, with the melody of ‘Silent Night’ being introduced as you learn how to turn a melody into a complete solo guitar arrangement by adding other element such as bass and additional notes. In between these two parts, the use of a ‘Capo’ and playing on ‘Alternate Tuning’ are discussed. The second part features lesson on a more advance solo guitar arrangement that incorporates the use of the newly learn techniques.

The 104 pages book also features fingerstyle arrangement to 36 songs although it would’ve been nice if all the songs were completely tabbed. Nevertheless, about a dozen were completely tabbed, enough to keep you busy for some time. Included with the book is an audio CD that contain all audio to examples and the featured songs which are; Dust in the Wind, Fire and Rain, Georgia on My Mind, You've Got a Friend, Imagine, Tears in Heaven, What a Wonderful World, Annie's Song and Yesterday among others.

Overall this is a good book for anyone who already been playing for a while and ready to expand their playing technique beyond strumming.

Here are the complete list of the 36 songs included with the book:

• Anji
• Annie's Song
• Blowin' In The Wind
• Come Together
• Cross Road Blues (Crossroads)
• Dear Prudence
• Dust In The Wind
• Fire And Rain
• Friends In Low Places
• Georgia On My Mind
• Ghost
• If I Wrote You
• Imagine
• Jack Fig
• Landslide
• Last Track
• Leader Of The Band
• Least Complicated
• Machine 3
• Michelle
• More Than Words
• My Favorite Things
• Radio Men
• Silent Night
• Song For George
• Strong Enough
• Take Me Home, Country Roads
• Tears In Heaven
• Time In A Bottle
• Watershed
• What A Wonderful World
• When I Was A Boy
• When The Children Cry
• Yesterday
• You Were Meant For Me 
• You've Got A Friend