Guitarist, composer, songwriter, and Mel Bay author—Jeff Troxel has been successful in the flatpicking contest world as well as being a sought-after college and summer camp instructor. In this book, he shares a lifetime of knowledge about one specific role of the bluegrass guitarist— that of accompaniment or “backup”. Beginning in Chapter One, Troxel lays the foundation for what is to come in rendering alternating bass lines, chord progressions, ornamentation, intros, endings, bass runs, chord-melodies, pedal tones, and other essential concepts that contribute to effective rhythm guitar playing. Five appendices address: Basic Music Theory, Capos and Transposition, Tuning, Guitars, Picks and Strings, and Lead Sheets for the dozen bluegrass tunes featured in the book. All music appears in standard notation and tablature with 69 audio tracks. By the time you finish reading and playing the examples in this book, you’ll be ready to jam or perform with the best! Includes access to online audio.

In this book, journalist, composer, songwriter, teacher, and 2003 Winfield Flatpicking Guitar Champion, Jeff Troxel, delivers a masterclass in arranging fiddle tunes for flatpicking guitar. These 20 themes and variations on favorite bluegrass melodies are designed to improve overall musicianship and augment your own arranging skills. Ideal for the intermediate to advanced flatpicking guitarist, the author reveals techniques for enabling readers to create their own theme and variations settings. Suggested rhythm guitar chords and light left-hand fingerings are also provided. Troxel points out that one of the unexpected benefits of learning and memorizing themes with variations is that the process will ultimately facilitate linear and harmonic improvisation. It would be a painstaking process to learn this skill from a teacher or a harmony textbook, but once memorized, the scale and arpeggio patterns within these tunes and variations will set you on a viable path towards original improvised lines. As a bonus, the author includes a generous appendix containing several of his Flatpicking Guitar Magazine articles that deal with aspects of musicianship that every guitarist should know. While written in standard notation and tab, if you have relied solely on tablature and recordings in the past, this book can provide the key to understanding essential music theory and reading standard notation. If you’re not quite ready to learn to read standard notation, you can still use the tab and the author’s excellent online recordings to learn these delightful arrangements. In any case, it will be fun to get these settings of standard bluegrass tunes “in-hand” and use them in future jam sessions.

Learn from transcriptions in the styles of Clarence White, Dan Crary, Charlie Waller, Peter Rowan and others. Over 30 tunes in tablature and music notation, plus photos.

Learn to play 14 classic blues the best way-by doing! This book and CD provide your backup band as you explore Country and Urban, Acoustic and Electric, Delta, Texas, Chicago, Slide Guitar, Alternate Tuning, Traditional, and Modern styles in many different major and minor keys and in a variety of tempos. Melodies are first presented on the recording at a slow speed with just guitar, then repeated at regular speed with the band. Finally, you can play along with the hot blues rhythm section alone, and you've got the makings of a dynamite blues jam session. You'll play all the leads and solos! Repeat a tune or passage as many times as you want at slow or regular speed. We'll jam all night long! Beginners and intermediate players can practice basic skills. Advanced players can hone their improvisation chops. the split track recording allows you to hear either just the melody from one speaker, just the rhythm section from the other, or both for maximum flexibility and specific study. the book includes melodies, chord diagrams and guitar tablature.

An ideal book for the guitarist wanting to play bluegrass guitar. Nashville's Tommy Flint presents techniques such as slurs, Hammer-ons, pull-offs, grace notes, bluegrass runs, drop thumb lead, the hook, two and three finger pulls, single string picking and bluegrass banjo style on the guitar. Also included are over twenty bluegrass guitar solos in notation and tablature and accompaniment/back-up parts to many. This book includes access to an online audio recording

Covers all the basics and will have you playing all the classic bluegrass favorites in no time. You'll learn classic bluegrass guitar techniques in the context of classic bluegrass standards. Beginning with basic left- and right-hand techniques, Dennis guides you through developing great backup parts, playing solos, and working with a bluegrass band. All books and videos in the Ultimate Beginner Bluegrass Basics Series are fully correlated to work together, allowing you to use these for putting together your own bluegrass band.

Welcome to Bluegrass Breaks: Guitar! This book is a collection of 23 guitar solos or breaks plus 16 introductions or kickoffs in a range of styles and levels of difficulty. The solos are aimed at advanced beginner to intermediate guitarists looking to expand their repertoire of lead guitar solos. All the solos are recorded in split-track format at two speeds and are available online. This book includes: Easy Carter-style solos with the melody played on the bass strings, punctuated by chord strums.More advanced Carter-style solos with hammer-ons, pull-offs, slides and more. Hot flatpicking solos with lots of eighth notes, played with up and down picking. Essential fiddle tunes for every modern bluegrass lead guitar player. Crosspicking solos played with two different crosspicking patterns. Solos using the real dropped D and the faux dropped D tunings.A variety of kickoffs, generic and for specific songs. Extensive notes on the breaks and the techniques used to play them.The breaks in this book are based on are some of the most performed bluegrass, old-time, and gospel songs - songs that you're sure to hear played at jam sessions, picking parties and on stage. Includes access to online audio