Is this one of the best or worst method books for acoustic fingerstyle guitar?

You can learn to play music by simultaneously using a variety of resources including teachers, online resources, and books.

Hal Leonard’s Fingerpicking Guitar, written by Doug Boduch, is a method book for learning to play solo fingerstyle (or “fingerpicking”) guitar or fingerstyle guitar accompaniment.  The book features lots of popular tunes (the Beatles, Adele, Sam Smith, Imagine Dragons, The Police, Toto, Ed Sheeran, etc.).  Overall, It is suitable for beginner through intermediate players with the tunes in the later sections of the book becoming progressively more difficult up to that intermediate skill level.  Advanced players may still find some fun repertoire tunes.  Guitar teachers may find this book to be a great teaching supplement.  The progression of topics is well laid out, the examples and arrangements are playable and sound good, and the text is concise. 

The book is very short at 38 pages.  This is partially due to a lack of detailed explanations, which is part of why this book may work better as a supplement to private lessons or to another more detailed method book.  The book is also short because it just doesn’t have that many examples.  The examples and arrangements are of high quality, but they don’t cover the many nuances that could pop up in the world of fingerstyle guitar.

If you are looking to play solo fingerstyle guitar arrangements of popular/modern tunes, then this book may be for you.  If you are looking for folk, blues, ragtime, Celtic, or classical music, then there are better options.

Fingerpicking Guitar starts with examples of playing easy single-line melodies (Happy Birthday, etc.) with your fingers or thumb.  The book then presents some arrangements that utilize a single, easy-to-grab bass note underneath the melody in each measure.  Later on it focuses on arrangements that feature alternating bass lines (Travis picking).  The book provides some basic arpeggiation examples for accompaniment as well as some arrangements that utilize arpeggiation, but it doesn’t really provide much detail about how to apply arpeggiation underneath a melody in a solo arrangement.  There is no discussion of more complex techniques (natural and artificial harmonics, harmonizing melodies with 3rds, 6ths, etc.), alternate tunings, or more modern percussive techniques.

Don’t confuse this book with Hal Leonard’s Fingerstyle Guitar by Chad Johnson.  There is a similar progression of information, but they are different books.  The older Fingerstyle Guitar also features popular tunes, but is overall lengthier and more detailed.  However, I prefer some of the arrangements in the newer Fingerpicking Guitar, especially for my guitar students.

There is virtually ZERO music theory in Fingerstyle Guitar.  This may appeal to some readers.  However, you won’t learn how to apply the concepts/techniques presented into other musical situations (other tunes, etc.).  With the help of a teacher or another book you could get a lot more out of Fingerpicking Guitar.

The book includes access to online audio or video for every example.  The audio can be slowed down which can be very helpful.  The guitar playing is clean and the recording quality is high.  Example numbers don’t line up between Example 30 and 33, but they are all there.

All playing examples are provided in standard notation (treble clef) and tablature.

You could use either a steel string acoustic or nylon string classical guitar to work through this book.  You don’t have to fret any bass notes using your thumb over the top (although I like to here and there).

Published by Hal Leonard © 2023.

My eBook: Arranging for Fingerstyle Guitar: go to http://joemcmurray.com/checkout/ to purchase a pdf of my eBook.  Learning to arrange melodies will also help your fingerstyle songwriting and your understanding of the inner workings of fingerstyle guitar.

My music is available on all streaming platforms: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5dcokTG6C598OhTslHH5uo?si=hrQb7FViSZewDRSgECw9Ew:

Pins on the Map: my third fingerstyle guitar album was released on January 19, 2024. Watch the first single, “Open Road,” on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/uPBh8sZQsT4?si=EM_wAwnHFqU1VC9C.

Riding the Wave and Acoustic Oasis: my first two fingerstyle guitar albums.