Complete Chet Atkins Guitar Method

Check out my in-depth YouTube video review ("Guitar Books Review #3: Complete Chet Atkins Guitar Method" 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 #3.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.This is an excellent method book aimed at beginner and intermediate guitar players who want to learn to play solo fingerstyle guitar arrangements in the style of Chet Atkins (the majority of which utilize an alternating bass/ Travis Style). If you are interested in this country-blues style of playing that Chet Atkins made popular starting in the 1950s and lasting until his death in 2001, this is a great place to start. This book ranges in difficulty from easy to intermediate, although a few of the final arrangements are fairly difficult.1) Starts with the very basics of music and playing the guitar, but focused on fingerstyle and fairly quickly gets you playing music with both melody and bass parts.2) Excellent and thorough look at playing solo fingerstyle arrangements utilizing alternate bass patterns. Goes through one key signature at a time and covers all the normal guitar-friendly keys (C, Am, G, Em, F, Dm, D, Bm, A, F#m, E).3) Very accessible tunes that you can learn and perform. Many of these tunes are old folks songs – you won’t find any arrangements of popular modern music.4) Useful picking exercises to develop technique.5) Several classical-esque tunes that are refreshing after lots of alternate bass.6) All standard tuning until the final arrangements (a couple are in alternate tunings).7) This book does not get into the modern percussive techniques used by modern players like Michael Hedges, Don Ross, Andy McKee, Mike Dawes, etc. No thumb or string slaps, guitar body percussion, or tapping.8) Audio Access included.This is not a bad first fingerstyle guitar book to purchase and work through. Obviously working with a teacher will streamline your development and prevent you from developing bad habits. If you make it through this book, you’ll have a great foundation for playing fingerstyle guitar. You’ll also learn some useable and fun arrangements of old tunes.I recommend using an acoustic steel string guitar rather than a classical guitar since there are multiple tunes that utilize the fretting hand thumb over the top.

Mel Bay starts you out.

I recently fell in love with fingerstyle guitar, especially Chet Atkins and Merle Travis. I have some limited guitar background, mostly chords and this has been the perfect book to learn this style. It starts out with the basics of music and guitar in general, and then moves you into learning to use your fingers on both hands. It begins with basic exercises and move into some easy songs. I appreciate being able to play some music fairly quickly in the process. Highly recommend it!

Opening exercises are decent and very good practice, but when you get into actual song numbers, best part of the book, maybe, with the print version, font shrinks to unreadable.

I like this book as it is written in s style that's easy to follow and learn fingerstyle guitar

A great foundation of guitar instruction

Love the book.been waiting for a while to get.love chet akins been following him since i was a teen. Best person to learn guitar from guitar man.

(see headline)

Exactly what I expected.Thanks

Bij een complete 'guitar method' verwacht ik een uitleg over de specifieke stijl van spelen die Chat Atkins zo kenmerkte, het onafhankelijk spelen van baslijnen met de duim en accoorden / melodie met de overige vingers en een manier (methode!) om je die speelstijl eigen te maken. Maar niets van dat al. Het boek begint met uitleg van notenschrift en staat verder vol met gitaarstukken in notenschrift en tablatuur. Er staan geen enkele toelichting of vingerzetting bij, ook geen opbouw of instructie voor deze toch zeer specifieke manier van spelen. Het is mij een raadsel waarom zoveel mensen hier toch positief over zijn.

Just want to correct some comments. The online audio works perfectly fine ! Just have to write down the code you find on the first page of the book on the Melbay website in the Download center section.

The download code for the audio doesn't work with these books.

learn to play guitar with the info you need but no crap