Week Ten- End of Semester, and a Review of My Resource

Wow, the university semester’s disappeared already!  While I will be writing a final response to this project for my professor, I also wanted to share my final feelings on the book I chose to use as a main resource.

Hal Leonard’s Basic Fingerpicking: a Guide to Fingerpicking in All Styles contained exactly the style of music I wanted to learn.  Therefore, I enjoyed the lessons.  However, it definitely wasn’t a beginner book.  I found myself having to do a lot of troubleshooting, which I enjoyed doing personally, but I could see a beginner guitarist getting very frustrated if they picked up this book off the bat.  The chords, as I have mentioned previously, are far from being the most player-friendly.  Again, I enjoyed the challenge of stretching out my fingers, but I can see a beginner hating playing these.  If I hadn’t already known how to switch between a few chords, I would have been lost.

This book really needed a better editor.  The student shouldn’t have to be correcting the book all the time- that was just a bit of sloppiness on the publisher’s behalf.  If I didn’t already have a fair background in music in general, I wouldn’t have been able to catch these mistakes, and would have just played the pieces incorrectly.  Come on guys, proof-read what you publish!

The CD was helpful for moments where I struggled to grasp the complex rhythm notations.  It was easier to listen to them and feel them out.  Yet the guitar playing on the CD sounds strangely fake, and the synthesized background music sometimes drowns the helpful guitar line.  Again, this just needed some editing before it went on shelves.

Personally, while I enjoyed using this book, I would not necessarily pass it on to someone who asked for a recommendation.  It needs some fine-tuning.  It’s like a written story that’s still in the works.

I did, however, learn that the Internet is a wonderful resource for common instruments like the guitar!  Whenever I had questions, I found it very easy to search the key word of what I was struggling with, and come up with an answer.  Having attempted to learn some guitar from the Internet about three years ago, I would say that the quality of the information on guitar available on-line has greatly improved, and is easier to access.  I remember it being a nightmare for me previously!

Oh, and concerning my goal song…I’m struggling quite a bit with sounding out “Thank God It’s the Morning” still, but I do almost have the verse down.  Once the verse is down, this is repeated over and over, so not too difficult!  I also noticed while sounding out another piece that I was able to pick out add-ons and drop-offs by ear.

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