The 9 Best fingerstyle Guitar Books (2023 reviews)

The latest dan thorpe fingerstyle guitar book is an absolute beast in terms of its features, and rightfully takes the top spot with ease. If you are new to fingerpicking this is a book for you. It is very encouraging, explaining how to get out of a rut and make real progress in your playing. The Wire-bound spiral binding would also be an improvement for any music book over 50 pages or so with a stapled binding. It's also exactly how Dan Thorpe approaches guitar instruction.

This book is so helpful for adding to your finger-picking tool kit and has the right practice advice to help you get over impediments to playing smoothly on the beat, with great tone and dynamics. It's also great as a refresher course for advanced beginners and early intermediate players. It is a lot of fun.

Why We Like This:

Goes in a logical order and makes it very easy for anyone to learn
Simple lessons to make your playing infinitely more listenable and enjoyable
Very practical and helpful guitar book
Follow the exercises, stay relaxed, and enjoy the journey

Best For intermediate player: Arnie Berle fingerstyle Guitar Book

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This book is not only a good introduction to Blues finger style but finger style in general. It takes you step by step through basic alternating thumb patterns to learning and picking the melody notes, ending in five blues pieces to learn. The material leads very well into learning the tunes at the end of the book. The book really holds your hand, so to speak, and builds on some excercises to get you up to speed in no time at all.

The book is nicely paced, well written and the CD, if a bit unevenly produced is a helpful addition. You'll feel a great deal of satisfaction when you listen to yourself playing these great melodies with your own guitar. This book will help you to learn and understand how to play fingerstyle guitar.

Why We Like This:

Excellent book to learn the mechanics of finger-style blues
An essential aspect of fingerstyle guitar
Great for going back to the roots of the genre
An absolute must for anyone wishing to delve into acoustic blues

Best For rhythm Guitar: Mr Simon Pratt fingerstyle Guitar Book

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If you often find yourself confused about appropriate and satisfactory book, mr simon pratt fingerstyle guitar book is your end point. Much of the material in this book is masterable without tearing your hair out, and the sequence the material is presented is very good for building skills, up to the "finale" performance piece which puts together all of the material into a pleasant composition. It starts with hand and finger placement, moves to timing and chord progressions, and adds things like chord embellishments. There is music, but the music is fragments that are designed for you to work the instruction. There are 3 beautiful performance pieces to which you apply these techniques. It's full of exercises teaching many fingerstyle techniques and patterns.

Why We Like This:

Starts with basics and advances at nice pace
Great starting point for learning fingerstyle guitar
Good brand reputation

Best For Your Guitar Music library: Chad Johnson fingerstyle Guitar Book

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Chad Johnson makes beautiful and great book with classic and smartly choosen materials. If you're interested in learning fingerstyle, or even just improve your guitar skills, this is a solid start to the process. This way you don't just have to read or memorize a song, you can figure out how to apply fingerstyle to any song. The video production is superb, from lighting to scripting, terrific camera angles to audio, and Mr. Haselhoff is a charming tutor, who plays and teaches with conciseness and clarity. They also cover how to arrange songs starting with the chords, melody and bass notes then adding fingerpicking "filler.

This book is a good book with some decent exercises and good songs. The thumb runs the 3 lower strings to set the chord base note and to keep the rhythm while the fingers play the 3 upper strings for the melody. It is written in music notation and TAB. This is a good book for people who want to develop fingerstyle technique.

Why We Like This:

Solid instruction in making fingerpicking arrangements
Takes practice and patience and sore fingers but keep at it
Good techniques and solid suggestions and hints

Best With Audio downloads: Mr Levi Clay fingerstyle Guitar Book

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The mr levi clay fingerstyle guitar book should be able to handle its purpose and duties with ease. It is a must own book for people who want to expand their guitar vocabs. When you have competed this book you should be able to create your own arrangements using the techniques you like, to give you the sound you enjoy the most. This book will give you the tools to really hone the finger-style craft even if you are a seasoned player.

These simple exercises train your fingers and it gets easier with each page. They loop over and over on your laptop, letting the sound of each progressively detailed lick sink into your brain. The book is inexpensive, a great value, and a valuable addition to any fingerstyle guitarist's library. It is great with the audio downloads.

Why We Like This:

Well written, tablature and musical notation
A great value, and a valuable addition to any fingerstyle
Lots of great exercises and usable licks/riffs/ideas
Great guide to country style fingerpicking

Best For Beginner Guitar: Guitar head fingerstyle Guitar Book

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Next on the list, we've got yet another book that manages to win our hearts. It's the guitar head fingerstyle guitar book and it's widely considered as one of the best convenient book you can buy. This book has been great so far, you will love the way it’s written, and the exercises are great for beginners. It is great for beginner wanting to learn finger style guitar.

Why We Like This:

New and hot release
Delivers what they promise

Best For Very advanced guitarists: Mark Hanson fingerstyle Guitar Book

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The mark hanson fingerstyle guitar book's material feels more premium than its price would suggest. There is a lot of good material in this book, a nice mix of music styles from numerous eras, from traditional American to contemporary and in between. It offers 20 seconds for the dazzling arpeggios of the introduction but only about eight seconds of the first verse. It is suitable for intermediate to advanced players.

Mark's arrangements of the standard songs in this book are refreshingly non-standard. It contains no explanatory text at all. The package does not include full versions of the songs themselves, but rather an instructional briefing on each song. It makes things, challenging for all but the most advanced guitarists. It is good for very advanced guitarists.

Why We Like This:

Lots of complex chord configurations and syncopated timings
A very nice set of solo arrangements
Good investment for long term

Best For intermediate: Lou Manzi fingerstyle Guitar Book

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The lou manzi fingerstyle guitar book is suitable and reliable and fits well with your daily usage. A guitar makes it easy for a singer to improve so quickly as a "musician-singer" by doing just that. It covers good technique and the songs are increasingly challenging and fun. It is a good beginning fingerstyle book. Unlike lesser fingersytle-guitar books, this one has pieces that, although challenging, because of their beauty and uniqueness, inspire you to practice regularly.

There's plenty of theory and a wealth of techniques, tips and tricks to make sure that the would-be guitarist forms the correct guitar habits right from the get go. The notation and tab are first-rate with helpful finger notation for the beginner.

Why We Like This:

Great book, very useful for advanced beginner fingerpick guitarist
Practice playing melody and bass lines at same time
Excellent intro with classical guitar explanations and theory

Best For fingerstyle guitarist: Bill Piburn fingerstyle Guitar Book

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We would, of course, be remiss if we didn't mention bill piburn fingerstyle guitar book for regular usage. For people like fingerstyle guitar you should not miss this book. The arrangement of Unchained Melody is phenomenal. The pieces can be challenging and are not written for beginners, but worth the effort if you can invest the time to master them. It is a great book for fingerstyle guitarist.

Why We Like This: