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.

This comprehensive study of contemporary flatpicking guitar technique presents numerous solos for the beginning through advanced flatpicking guitarist along with tips on creating your own flatpicking arrangements. The book addresses the tablature system, tuning, right and left-hand technique, use of the capo and themicrophone, transposing using the Nashville numbering system, bluegrass back- up, arranging flatpicking solos and instrumentals. If you're into country or bluegrass music, or if you just want to develop outstanding flatpicking technique, this book is for you. Written in standard notation and tablature. The stereo play-along audio online features Steve Kaufman's rousing performance of each flatpicking solo! Also includes a videio online containing some of the solos andtechniques presented in the book. Audio and video download available online

(Musicians Institute Press). Navigate the guitar neck better than ever before with this easy-to-use book! Designed from Musicians Institute core curriculum programs, it covers essential concepts for players of every level, acoustic or electric. A hands-on guide to theory, it will help you learn to build any scale or chord on your own and unleash creativity. No music reading is required.

Providing the "What," "How," and "Why," master guitarist and teacher Shawn Persinger shows you how to get the most out of the best guitar books. You'll find insightful commentaries and more than 100 individually tailored guitar lessons - in all styles - that will provide beginner, intermediate, and advanced players with a lifetime of knowledge, insight, and inspiration.Unlike any other guitar method, The 50 Greatest Guitar Books is part guitar instruction, part music appreciation, and part literary criticism. Persinger delivers as much practical musical content as he does analysis and educated insight.Includes contribution from legendary educators and players: Rik Emmett, Henry Kaiser, Steve Kaufman, Wolf Marshall, Tim Sparks, and many more.More than 100 stylized guitar lessons: Chord Voicings, Arpeggios, Two-Handed Tapping, Fingerpicking, Slide Guitar, Walking Bass Lines, Improvisation, and much more.Featuring all styles: Blues, Classical, Funk, Metal, Rock, Jazz, World, Ragtime, Flamenco, Bluegrass, Gypsy Jazz, Pop, Latin, Fingerpicking, Country, Fusion, and more.

Book & CD. This FUN instruction book will get you playing forty old-time and bluegrass guitar tunes in no time flat! Wayne's many years of teaching guitar are evident on each page of this book. The instruction audio CD is complete with a whopping 91 tracks and the complete lyrics to all forty songs found in the book. This book is guaranteed to help the beginning and intermediate guitarist.

Celtic Flatpicking in Open D Guitar Tuning Tuning your guitar to DADF#AD or "Open D" compliments Celtic music brilliantly. The open tuning allows the strings to vibrate easily, creating drones and overlapped notes that sound reminiscent of a harp or bagpipe. The 30+ tunes represent a good selection of well-known Celtic session tunes including, jigs, reels, hornpipes, waltzes and songs. Each tune shows notation, tablature and chords. Some of the tunes are arranged with chords added in with the melody, while the faster tunes just have the melody line. Go to my website (KalymiMusic.com) to play along with the accompaniment tracks to help learn the tunes quickly. If you are new to this style, then check out my twelve useful tips for Flatpicking. There are also some examples of how to use ornamentation to further embellish the tunes. For further study in Open D, I have included a series of chord and arpeggio charts with fingerboard diagrams. These charts will help you learn the DADF#AD fingerboard and allow you to accompany in Open D with Major, Minor and Dominant 7th chords. Campanella (overlapping) scales in Major and Minor are given plus Mixolydian and Dorian modal scales, which are common in this style. Use these scales as a technical practice to help master the fingerboard and to help achieve a flowing legato-sound to authentically play the tunes. There is also a small selection of common chords in Open D, some Celtic strumming patterns in 4/4 and 6/8, and note charts and DADF#AD fingerboard charts. If you are new to reading tablature, there is a page on how to read tablature and how to read rhythms. Some audio tracks are available here: Celtic Flatpicking Open D Guitar Tuning - Kalymi Music (brentrobitaille.com)

This book provides a master source for building agility, flexibility and speed while playing with a flatpick, as well as a repertoire source for the plectrum-style guitarist. the studies are designed to build reading ability and clarity of sound in a variety of styles, as well as agility in cross-picking and the playing of rapid linear passages. Includes over 100 original and jazz etudes, fiddle tunes, and a great number of classical guitar pieces transcribed for plectrum guitar. Written in standard notation and tablature.