Learn Acoustic Blues Guitar Fingerpicking and Soloing: A Comprehensive Guide to Mastering Fingerstyle Blues Guitar

franssoit: Excellents exercices très progressifs pour maitriser le finger picking

France on Oct 02, 2023

Sanpit T.: Great for learning

United States on Sep 29, 2023

E. J. Peters: I have just started into this book and am finding the lessons straightforward.

United Kingdom on Aug 15, 2023

Donald L. Thunderbird: I have been a guitar "strummer" for 50 years..and now that I have retired, and found I had more time to devote to playing. Soon, however, I wanted to expand beyond just playing chords and singing along with my popular songs repertoire.I had begun listening to more fingerstyle artists like Mississippi John Hurt, Etta Baker, Jorma Kaukonen, etc. & I wanted to find a way to play alternating bass-lines simultaneously with melodies.I began surfing around Amazon and discovered this amazing book by Joseph Alexander.

Chapter one started off simple..I began learning to read the tablature. Through the book's gradual and steady advance through its well articulated written material & its easy to follow exercises (all supported by audio clips for each one), I progressed ...& by time I got to the end of the chapter..I could not believe my ears as to what I was playing!! And that was just CHAPTER ONE!!
I might add, this book is not a beginner's book...but I discovered there are PLENTY of beginners books in Joseph Alexander's Fundamental Changes series..this book is just the tip of the iceberg ...! there might be 50 to 100 books they have to offer in every imaginal style. I...

United States on Jun 05, 2023

Gregory Combs: Great book for intro to fingerstyle blues. I like the book's layout and the material is presented in a very easy-to-follow format so that you understand the exercises clearly along with the accompanying audio. Overall, the books in this series are very well done, I've purchased some PDF books from them also. Highly recommend.

United States on Jun 01, 2023

guillaume neault: I bought this book ten days ago. I highly recommend it; I can use the book to introduce new exercises in my routine and troubleshoot weakness in my playing. I am new to fingerstyle blues guitar and I appreciate how the book introduces core concepts I can use in general fingerstyle picking.

Canada on May 31, 2023

Joseph McMurray: Check out my in-depth YouTube video review ("Guitar Books Review #8: Fingerstyle Blues Guitar by Joseph Alexander " by Joe McMurray) in which I objectively go through the book chapter by chapter and play through many examples. You can also hear the full review on "Guitar Books the Podcast" - Review #8. For context, I’m a professional player and teacher with a background in jazz, I’ve released two fingerstyle guitar albums, and I’ve written my own book on arranging for fingerstyle guitar.

Joseph Alexander’s Fingerstyle Blues Guitar (published by Fundamental Changes) is an excellent book for learning the fundamentals of fingerstyle blues guitar with either a monotonic or alternating bass. This book is good for intermediate or advanced players and is also great for non-fingerstyle blues, rock, or jazz guitarists looking to get into fingerstyle blues. The first half of the book is focused on improvising lead melodies over a monotonic bass (mostly E minor pentatonic over an open 6th string), and the second half of the book is focused on blues chord progressions and picking patterns, soloing over blues progressions, turnarounds, bass lines, and two short...

United States on May 27, 2023

Fabian Longo: I am learning guitar and exploring the vast world of Blues music. Fingerstyle Blues is brand new to me. This reference book is a good start to learn and develop my skills. Highly recommended to anyone willing to enter Music lifelong learning journey !

Germany on May 22, 2023

William Bonilla: This book provides the most well rounded structure I have seen so far that’s written in music language that’s in the style of the blues. Classic!

United States on Apr 17, 2023

JohnT: I have been using this book for the last 6 months, progressing steadily and slowly and I am just over half way through. Even though I am an experienced player (flamenco) and used to thumb and finger separation, it is different in a number of ways, to the discipline for playing finger style blues.

So, why 3 stars? So I bought this book on the basis of earlier 5 star reviews and I feel misled in that the following obvious points were not picked up. The approach taken in this book is, in itself acceptable if you like using repeated very short exercises as a learning method. By short, I mean as little as 2 bars. The method is structured in a way that builds up the skill level layer by layer as you progress through the exercises. The entire contents of every single one of the 10 chapters has numerous exercises like this. It is unchanging and repetitive in its approach. The 2 bar exercise is used without variation again and again and again, right up until the end of the last chapter, when you are presented with two longer studies. That is it. So if you are looking for a varied and interesting learning experience, you may be disappointed. Eventually in later chapters, these do...

United Kingdom on Jun 15, 2019