Alternating Bass Guitar Method: Complete and Progressive Method For Fingerpicking Guitar Paperback – February 1, 2015

I have visited guitarnick.com for several years, enjoying the free lessons Nick shares there. I am finally ready to tackle alternating bass and this book is as excellent as I expected it to be. I also have Nick's other book, 120 Arpeggios, bought from Amazon. It too is excellent. Highly recommend for those willing to put in the effort to learn more than rhythm guitar. I'm 68 y/o and it's not too difficult for me. I also notice a nice improvement in my cognitive functioning since getting serious about learning fingerstyle guitar.

The book is easy to understand, 40 songs are included. I can flat pick good but never understood finger picking.I,m in my middle 60's and I don't know how far I will get finger picking. Guitar Nick has helped me learn flat picking songs from his web site, and I thank him for all his work. If I only learn a few simple songs from this book that will be OK. For me this book is well worth it just to understand finger picking, and try to learn.

I will likely update this review as I progress further in the course. For now, I'll post some initial impressions under a 4 star banner.There's a lot of material here with a wide range of styles and techniques, involving thumb and progressively more of the other picking fingers. It would appear that diligent practice and application of the techniques will help me gain a certain amount of mastery of guitar fingerpicking.I do have a few negative things to point out:1] The cover & the start pages of each level of the book say:{Available video tutorials of all exercises and songs on his website} ... I have NOT found this to be the case, despite a fair amount of digging. On his 'Fingerstyle' page, the section 'FINGERSTYLE GUITAR LESSONS' has some links to:'LEARN FINGERSTYLE GUITAR IN 8 LESSONS''MORE FINGERSTYLE LESSONS''20 WARM UP FINGERSTYLE GUITAR EXERCISES'Unfortunately, none of these links line up with the book's exercises [at least for 30 pages or so I've worked on].So Nick: how about just posting a link or so with compressed mp3 files of recordings that DO line up with the book? We paid for the book with the understanding we'd be able to play alongside ALL of the exercises.Note: Nick's companion book [120 ARPEGGIOS FOR FINGERSTYLE GUITAR] DOES have all the exercises posted on his website. I'd still rather have all this as files on my PC, since it's a little clunky using the website links for everything.2] Everything is in TAB ... no notation. I realize TAB makes things a lot more accessible to a wider audience of players and students and that adding notation to a method book of this magnitude would expand the size quite bit. But I'm a student who tries to read notation as much as possible, so I much prefer it [and try to avoid leaning on tablature as much as possible]. This may put me in a minority position, but so be it.Note: Nick's companion book [120 ARPEGGIOS FOR FINGERSTYLE GUITAR] DOES have all the exercises in notation & tab, so this is helping a lot.

This book goes from beginner to intermediate level. In other words, anyone interested in learning to play fingerstyle guitar, whether they're just starting out or already have some knowledge & experience, all will benefit!

It tricks your fingers into playing perfectly and easily. Fingers develop a memory of placement and, if you keep practicing, instead of it getting harder, it gets easier! It is freaking magic and I recommend this to any fingerpicking learner.

The lessons and practice are well written and together with video reference in the internet, it is a great help.

Excellent book!! i have dedicatedly been following the lessons for the past month, and try to give it 2 hours a day, and can feel and hear the difference, i put the book on a stand, and go through the lesson tab and corresponding video, try to get the finger movement going, then use a metronome start at 90 bpm and then 110 and then finally 120, if i can play it at 120, i move on to the next set of lessons.

I would have given this book a 10 if I could! My grandson loves this book. He has wanted to play guitar and was so bored with playing chords. He has set his electronic devices aside since starting to learn fingerstyle. Thank you so much Nicola Mandorino for such a wonderful book!