posted 06-15-2004 01:04 AM            

New poster here (just posted an intro over in the "Gear" section). Just thought I'd pass along a recommendation of two of my favorite fingerstyle tab books in the recent past, both from Mel Bay.

Tommy Emmanuel's book to his "Only" CD is one that you'll be delighted with. The transcriptions are some of the best I've seen. It's definitely geared toward intermediate playing, but even if you're a beginner, it's a book you will eventually go back to time and time again. it doesn't have a CD with it, so you'll have to grab the CD seperately, but definitely worth having.

If I had to pick a book in my thirty years of collecting books that I've gotten the most out of, Stephen Bennett's new book/CD "The Stephen Bennett Fingerstyle Collection" would be among them. His pieces are so listenable and very negotiable. Again, an intermediate level book, but every song I've learned from it people ask me about at gigs. Let's face it, fingerstyle guitar playing is a tough sell for the average listener, but Stephen's pieces are real crowd pleasers and a lot of people, players and non-players alike, come up and ask me about them during breaks.

Have fun,

posted 06-15-2004 02:32 PM            

Yeah, I know, the whole beginner/intermediate/advanced designation can be pretty broad. In reality though, if you compare the degree of difficulty of Tommy's pieces to certain classical pieces of Bach, Barrios, and others which are truly left-hand nightmares, aside from the speed factor, there's not a lot going on that is insurmountable. The Mel Bay site uses a numerical scale of 1-3 (one being beginner, three being advanced) to designate difficulty. They label the "Only" book between a 2 and a 3.

Mark Pritcher deserves mention here for doing the transcription on the "Only" book. I started collecting books back in the 70s when Stefan Grossman's Kicking Mule Records was king so I've seen some of the shoddiest transciption and some of the best and everything in between. Mark has done some of the best I've seen.

Cheers,

posted 06-15-2004 09:26 PM            

Chuck

posted 06-16-2004 12:54 AM            

No, aside from the excellent accuracy of the transcription, the printing in the Emmanuel book is some of the best I have seen as well. Conventional six-line tab with notation on the top stave and tab on the bottom.

I have never seen anyone but Stefan use the spaces before instead of the lines. It was definitely hard to read, especially since most of the old KM transcriptions had no rhythmic notation. I can't complain though, back then, his was pretty much the only game in town and KM had some of the best fingerstyle artists in the world, many of whom no longer record or play. It's a pity that people like Ton Van Bergyk, Dave Evans and Leo Wijnkamp are no longer recording.

I must have owned just about every recording and tab book KM issued in the 70s and 80s. Many of those old tab books are becoming quite collectible. A couple of years ago, I weeded out my collection of stuff I knew I'd never go back to and put a bunch of them up on e-bay. I was shocked at how many bids they got.

Cheers,

posted 06-17-2004 09:54 PM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dilbert:
I don't haver the "Only" book but I do have his other book, which for the life of me I can't remember the title off (it must be my age).

---

"Note For Note" by Paul Hedman and Peter Pik.

Great book. Buy it! I'm still reading it 5 years after I bought it. Lots of interesting stuff about Django, Travis, Atkins, Reed and more as well as the transcriptions.

posted 06-25-2004 10:03 AM            

I've just got the Steven Bennett book and there are some great pieces in there - also quite a range of difficulty!

I was wondering which songs you play in a gig situation and how they go down with the audience?

posted 06-25-2004 02:23 PM            

Although I've at least walked through all the pieces in the book, there are three in my current performance repertoire: "Good Dog," "The Most Beautiful Sky" and "Life's Too Short." They all get more comments than many other pieces in my sets, but the one that gets noticed and asked about most often is "Life's Too Short." People seem to love the rhythm and blues style backbeat. The right hand is a bit tricky getting that rhtyhm to flow, but it's definitely a keeper once you get it.

I had a chance to hang with Stephen a bit last year in Nashville and he is one of the nicest, funniest and most gracious people I've been fortunate to meet.

Post another note and let us all how the book is going for you and what your impressions of the tunes are. I'd be interested in your favorites.

Cheers,

posted 07-15-2004 02:53 AM            

I bought the Tommy Emmanuel book and CD 'Only'. Love the CD and I'm looking forward to learning some of the pieces.

When reading the notes in the intro I notice that Tommy Emmnauel uses a hybrid picking style on many of these pieces i.e. plectrum and fingers together (which I'm not very good at).

My question is do you guys tend to adopt this approach for these tunes or do you use traditional finger picking and if so does this style lend itself ok to Tommy Emmanuel tunes (or do they not sound the same!)

Thanks

posted 07-18-2004 12:32 AM            

Yeah, Tommy uses hybrid picking as well as straight thumb-pick/fingers. I found though that most of the pieces are adaptable to straight fingers. I have never used a hybrid approach or even a thumb pick but stick to straight flesh & nails. Most of the pieces work just fine. What I found more difficult are the left-hand stretches on a several of the tunes. There were a couple that I simply couldn't negotiate, so I ended up taking some liberties here and there to work around them.

My favorite one in the book to play lately is "Drivetime." But there is one monster stretch in it that was just not possible for me. Fortunately it is very brief and can be worked around in any number of ways.

Good luck,

posted 07-26-2004 03:00 AM               

Dilbert: I think the 'get to work'-thing is Tommy's standard way of signing the 'Only' book. Earlier this year I was standing in line after a concert and I noticed that he signed all the books with the same words.

Oh well, we can't possibly hold it against him. I think it's great that we mortals can have a book signed by the real 'Guitar God' in the first place. I look forward to see him with Stephen Bennet, Muriel Anderson, Tom Bresh and others at the Tommy Emmanuel Guitar Festival in Germany in a couple of weeks.

By the way, the quote by Howard Roberts and a photo copy of Tommy's 'get to work'-instruction hang on the wall of my music room. They motivate me tremendously! (The Only book IS hard!)

Regards, axmaster (peter)