Guitar Books Review #5: The Gigging Guitarist by Michael Wood
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- Опубліковано 25 сер 2024
- Is this one of the best or worst Celtic repertoire books for fingerstyle guitar?
You can learn to play music using a variety of resources including teachers, online resources, and books.
Michael Wood’s “The Gigging Guitarist: Traditional Celtic and Appalachian Tunes for Fingerstyle Guitar” provides sonorous and playable solo fingerstyle repertoire for late beginner to advanced guitar players. As implied by the title of the book, you could actually take the book to a coffee shop/restaurant/wedding ceremony gig and play it from cover to cover. The tunes are not hard for an experienced player, but the arrangements sound really good! If you are interested in Celtic tunes like Turlough O’Carolan’s “Si Beag Si Mhor,” Irish or Appalachian jigs or fiddle tunes, or traditional Appalachian ballads, then this book provides a nice selection of enjoyable material.
Michael Wood’s arrangements utilize neither alternating bass / Travis Picking patterns nor any percussive techniques. Instead, the arrangements utilize arpeggiation to fill the spaces between the melody notes. The tunes have a flowing style that is easy on the hands and the ears. Also, the tunes are all in standard tuning. There are a few where I personally like modifying to Drop D, but it isn’t necessary to do so.
1) Excellent repertoire in the above-mentioned styles. You won’t find any of these tunes on mainstream radio in the USA.
2) The tunes can all be played without any page turns - great for gigs.
3) The arrangements cause low hand fatigue - great for gigs. No full barre chords.
4) No alternate tunings - great for gigs. You can always experiment with altering the tuning of a song if you feel so inclined.
5) Optional intros make the tunes sound more polished.
6) Performance notes at the beginning of the book provide a little bit of background for each tune.
7) Standard Notation and Tablature. Almost no picking or fretting hand fingering is notated.
8) No audio access.
As mentioned, this is a repertoire book full of songs. This is NOT a method book that teaches you step-by-step how to play solo fingerstyle guitar. If you are taking lessons or independently learning how to play, this book would be a nice supplement to a method book. If you like these tunes then you’re in luck because the author has released several more books with additional repertoire!
Acoustic steel string or classical guitar - no thumb over the top.
Written by Michael Wood. © 2017
eBook: Arranging for Fingerstyle Guitar: go to joemcmurray.com...
to purchase a pdf of my eBook.
Riding the Wave: my second fingerstyle guitar album is available on all streaming platforms.
Hi Joe, Michael Wood here. This was wonderful! Thank you for taking the time to review my book. As a small independent publisher, this made my day to see this video. I appreciate the kind words and loved hearing you play through some of the tunes. For you and anyone else out there, this was actually the first book of a series of 4 Gigging Guitarist books in the series. There's a Christmas book, a book of hymns, and another Celtic/Appalachian similar to this one. I have some other books on Turlough O'Carolan specifically and another of just Scottish music. Thanks again, awesome work!
Michael! I'm honored to hear from you! I have your 2nd book of Celtic/Appalachian tunes and I love it possibly more than the first one. I'm hoping to get to it in a future review. Having grown up in western NC (as I believe you did), these tunes have a special place in my heart.
Thanks for creating and posting. This kind of presentation is rare - it provides an opportunity for guitarists to actually hear the pieces in a book, performed by a skilled musician. Also, the review itself is well-informed and balanced.
Thanks so much for the kind words! Let me know if there are any books that you'd like for me to review in the future. Good luck with everything!
I will acquire this book.
Thanks for the review.
Hey Joe,
I acquired used versions of this & the “more” companion book, + the Hymns book, too. (Thnx again.
***Is your book available in paperback.
I love the content sample on your site, but, I do not do ebooks
Thank you for your time,
Sparks
Hey Sparks! Sorry for my late reply to this - I was traveling over the holidays. Enjoy the Michael Wood books - the two that I have are wonderful. Regarding my book - I wish I could print hard copies of the book but it is not economical right now. I do teach virtual lessons if you'd like to get some of the information in that format. Take care.
@@JoeMcMurrayMusic Hey Joe, Well, I’ve been snapping up paper back editions of many a Learner for guitar & ,,,, Also, I have a classical guitar instructor. I feel that, for $20, I would want to hold the printed version. I do enjoy the M. Wood books…. (I now have all 3)
Finally Athena shows up
Some days she just snoozes in the another room, but on this particular day she wanted to keep me company!
Hi Joe. I like your review of Michael's Celtic and Appalachian Tunes. It is very information about what is in the book. In fact, I bought the book and the second one, MORE. I like that Michael's arrangements sound good on both steel and nylon string guitars.
Mark - thanks for your comment! The second book is wonderful and I may like it more than the original. Same style of arrangement, great batch of tunes. Enjoy!
Golden retriever gets 5 stars.
I see that you have one too! She's a great companion for practice and most other things!