This is a brilliant collection of ten favorites arranged for flatpicking guitar from top to bottom by three-time National Flatpicking Champion Steve Kaufman, with some tunes running 10 to 12 pages. These extensive and exciting arrangements are designed for the intermediate through advanced student who is looking for a real challenge. Performance of this type of tune will increase your awareness of concentration and build your stamina. Flatpickers generally play a two-part tune or AABB tune. These tunes are AA BB AA CC AA DD AA and possibly with an EE AA section. These electrifying arrangements will soon become favorites of yours and those around you through Steve's clear and precise arrangement notes and comprehensive text.

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.

Many great Scottish traditional tunes can be traced back to 17th century lute music. In this collection, multi-instrumentalist Rob MacKillop has transcribed and arranged 25 popular tunes derived from various lute manuscripts. While idiomatic to the guitar, some of these arrangements include fast runs and chord changes, so are best suited to the intermediate-level flatpicking guitarist. This guitar collection consists of the same melodies in the same keys found in its mandolin counterpart, Tunes From 17th Century Scotland Arranged for Mandolin (Mel Bay Publications). In both books, suggested chords are provided wherever appropriate. Consequently, the settings work fine as either mandolin/violin and guitar duets, or as solos for either instrument. Until now, most of these appealing dance tunes and airs have not been available as guitar arrangements. Here, except for two tunes in drop-D tuning, all are in standard guitar tuning. With MacKillop’s spirited online recording, generous performance notes and standard notation and tablature for each selection, get ready to explore a wonderful new take on an old repertoire! Includes access to online audio.

This fun and easy book and CD takes you from the very beginning. Learning right and left-hand techniques, learning your first chords, 18 great songs AND you painlessly learn them by reading notes. Anyone can do it. Steve's method and approach to learning to read notes is so simple that 4 year olds have done it. You will start with 4 simple notes. Steve then teaches songs using just those four notes. He systematically adds a few more notes at a time bundled with easy to understand instructions and songs so that in a short time you will know all the notes, chords, strumming patterns to play hundreds of songs. This is a perfect primer for many of Steve's best sellers and other author's books. Audio CD included.

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.

The idea here is to help coordinate the pickers so you all have solos to play and they can be played in the same key. What a concept - a Band in the Book. Within these pages you will find solos for the entire band: lead guitar, rhythm guitar, banjo, mandolin, fiddle and bass. the mandolin and fiddle share the same tunings so their solos are just written once for both. If you are just starting out and you are having difficulty-finding solos for your level - look no more. These solos are written for the beginner level student assuming you can already play a few simple solos or lead breaks. This series will help you to learn solos on multiple instruments, help organize ensemble play, help develop a steady sense of timing and give you hours of enjoyment as well.View the lyrics for this book.

The idea here is to help coordinate the pickers so you all have solos to play and they can be played in the same key. What a concept - a Band in the Book. Within these pages you will find solos for the entire band: lead guitar, rhythm guitar, banjo, mandolin, fiddle and bass. the mandolin and fiddle share the same tunings so their solos are just written once for both. If you are just starting out and you are having difficulty-finding solos for your level - look no more. These solos are written for the beginner level student assuming you can already play a few simple solos or lead breaks. This series will help you to learn solos on multiple instruments, help organize ensemble play, help develop a steady sense of timing and give you hours of enjoyment as well.View the lyrics for this book.

The idea here is to help coordinate the pickers so you all have solos to play and they can be played in the same key. What a concept - a Band in the Book. Within these pages you will find solos for the entire band: lead guitar, rhythm guitar, banjo, mandolin, fiddle and bass. the mandolin and fiddle share the same tunings so their solos are just written once for both. If you are just starting out and you are having difficulty-finding solos for your level - look no more. These solos are written for the beginner level student assuming you can already play a few simple solos or lead breaks. This series will help you to learn solos on multiple instruments, help organize ensemble play, help develop a steady sense of timing and give you hours of enjoyment as well.

This book and accompanying audio are the perfect primer for anyone interested inlearning blues guitar played with a pick. An addition to Steve Kaufman's My First series, the book starts the student from the very beginning. Basic chords and notation are presented, progressing to blues strumming patterns and lines. Lessons also cover blues scales, tablature, I-IV-V chords and more. The book is perfect for anyone interested in learning blues guitar, and experienced tab readers who wish to learn standard notation

This fun and easy mandolin book and CD takes you from the very beginning. Learning right and left-hand techniques, learning your first chords, 18 great songs AND you painlessly learn them by reading notes. Anyone can do it. Steve's method and approach to learning to read notes is so simple that 4 year olds have done it. You will start with 4 simple notes. Steve then teaches songs using just those four notes. He systematically adds a few more notes at a time bundled with easy to understand instructions and songs so that in a short time you will know all the notes, chords, strumming patterns to play hundreds of songs. This is a perfect primer for many of Steve's best sellers and other author's books. Audio CD included.