The Art of Contemporary Travis Picking: How to Play the Alternating Bass Fingerpicking Style (Bk & CD)

Rating:
Summary: Excellent book - good CD
Review: Practicing each exercise is a pleasure. They build in difficulty in an even progression and I learned nice patterns almost immediately. The CD is high quality and very useful. The only fault I can assign is the "hurriedness" of the CD. This is easily overcome by simply pausing the audio so that you can read each exercise before listening to it. I have a dozen or so Book/CD combos and this is one of the best.

Rating:
Summary: Get this book if you want to learn fingerstyle!
Review: This book starts easy with basic Travis patterns and builds gradually to harder stuff (two chords per measure, walking, etc.) And the songs are fun to play and sing, you don't have to endure Mary Had a Little Lamb. It greatly helped my playing skills, and I'm now working on his next book, The Art of Solo Fingerpicking. Buy this book, you won't regret it!

Rating:
Summary: A must for people learning to fingerpick
Review: Usually instructional books are a complete waste of time for me. However, I found that this book is extremely well organized and thought out. You learn basic patterns and how to switch between each of the different possible chord formations. As the book advances, so do the picking patterns. For each chapter, there is a song to learn, so you can apply your newly acquired skills (some songs are dorky, but oh well).

Rating:
Summary: Don't let your kids learn Travis Picking on the streets...
Review: With about a year of experience on guitar, I wanted to branch out and try different styles. This book was just what I needed to get fired up again. Don't let the size of the book fool you. The exercises are exceptionally well organized and build upon each other very logically. After three days of practicing with the book and CD I was picking melodies I couldn't have imagined playing before, and with good speed, tone and rhythm. This really is the best Guitar instruction book I own, and I greatly look forward to receiving the Art of Solo Fingerpicking in the next week or so.