About the Flatpicking Essentials Course
This 8 Volume course, developed by Dan Miller and Tim May contains a complete method of
learning how to play pick style acoustic guitar. The goal of this course is to provide pick style acoustic guitar players with a complete, step-by-step study method. In addition to the core volumes, there are 4 supplemental books. Two of the
supplemental books, "The Guitar Player's Guide to Developing Speed,
Accuracy and Tone" and "The Guitar Player's Practical Guide to Scales
and Arpeggios" are books that provide fundamental exercises that would
apply to the material in any and all of the Flatpicking Essentials
volumes. The other two supplemental books, "The Flatpicker's Guide to
Old-Time Music" and "The Flatpicker's Guide to Irish Music" provide
instruction and song selection specific to those to genres of music.
Here are some specifics regarding each of the Volumes of the Flatpicking Essentials Course:
Volume 1: Rhythm, Bass Runs, and Fill Licks
This 96-page spiral bound instructional book, with audio CD, teaches
you how to play interesting and exciting rhythm guitar accompaniment by
showing you how to fill the rhythm guitarist roles of: Keeping Good
Time, Outlining the Chord, Leading the Listener's Ear to the Chord
Change, and adding Texture, Excitement, Drive, and Interest. The goal of
this book and accompanying CD is to make you a better rhythm player and
improve your knowledge of bass runs, fill licks, and right hand
strumming patterns
Volume 2: Learning How To Solo, Carter Style and Beyond
In the 108-pages of Volume 2 of the Flatpicking Essentials series you
will be given very detailed instruction designed to teach you how to
create solos to vocal tunes by using the following process:
1) Select a Vocal Song
2) Learn the Chord Progression by Ear
3) Learn the Basic Melody by Ear
4) Find the Carter Style Arrangement
5)
Embellish the Carter Style Arrangement using techniques such as
hammer-ons, pull-offs, slides, alternate chord strums, tremolo, double
stops, crosspicking, neighboring notes, scale runs, drones, and fill
licks.
The 36 songs that you will study in order to learn how to apply these steps to any song.
Volume 3: Flatpicking Fiddle Tunes
Flatpicking and fiddle tunes go hand-in-hand. However, in this day
and age too many beginning and intermediate level players rely too
heavily on tablature when learning fiddle tunes. This becomes a problem
in the long run because the player eventually reaches a plateau in their
progress because they don't know how to learn new tunes that are not
written out in tablature, they do not know how to create their own
variations of tunes that they already know, and it becomes very hard to
learn how to improvise. Flatpicking Essentials, Volume 3 helps to solve
all of those problems. In this volume of the Flatpicking Essentials
series you are going to learn valuable information about the structure
of fiddle tunes and then you are going to use that information to learn
how to play fiddle tunes by ear, and create your own variations.
Volume 4: Understanding the Fingerboard and Moving Up the Neck
As the name implies, this book (with two CDs) teaches you how to
become familiar with using the entire fingerboard of the guitar and it
gives you many practical exercises and song examples that will help you
become very comfortable playing up-the-neck. With this book and CD you
will learn how to explore the whole guitar neck using a very thorough
study of three important fingerboard familiarization "road maps,"
including: chord shapes (chord "centers"), scale patterns (both
horizontal and vertical), arpeggios, and song examples. You will also
learn how to comfortably move up-the-neck and back down using slides,
open strings, scale runs, harmonized scales, floating licks, and more.
Over 150 pages in length, this book provides a very thorough study of
each topic. If you've ever sat and watched a professional player's
fingers dance up and down the fingerboard with great ease and you
thought "I wish I could do that!" This book and 2 CD set are for you!
Volume 5: Improvisation and Style Studies
Improvisation is one of those things that flatpickers always ask
about at workshops and seminars. It is one of those mysterious and
elusive concepts that is hard for many people to grasp. In this Volume
of the Flatpicking Essentials series authors Dan Miller and Tim May take
away the mystery by presenting a step-by-step gradual learning method
that will have you improvising immediately and then build your skill
slowly and steadily. By the end of this book you will have the
confidence and the skill to step out and start improvising at your next
jam session.
In addition to the extensive improvisation section, part 2 of this
book includes "Style Studies" that are focused on the "founding fathers"
of flatpicking: Doc Watson, Norman Blake, Clarence White, Tony Rice,
and Dan Crary. This section of the book profiles elements of each of
these player's flatpicking styles, and then teaches you how to work
those style elements into your own solos by giving you many song and
fiddle tune examples.
Volume 6: Improvsation (Part II) & Advance Technique Studies
This book provides you with 152 pages (and 2 audio CDs) worth of
valuable information that is designed to help you take your flatpicking
to the next level. It is organized in two sections:
Improvisation, Part II: Flatpicking Essentials, Volume 6 is divided
into two main sections. The first section is Part II of our study of
improvisation. Volume 5 introduced readers to a step-by-step free-form
improv study method that we continue here in Volume 6. The improvisation
section of Volume 5 introduced improvisation over various I, IV, V
chord progressions using chord tones and scale notes. Volume 6 continues
with the same course of study; however, chord progressions get more
complicated.
An
added feature of this Volume of the course is the inclusion of an
appendix that will serve as an easy reference for all of the chord
progressions that you were given in Volumes 5 and 6. We are also
providing slow, medium, and fast back up tracks for all of these
progressions.
Advanced Technique: The second section of this book is focused on
advanced flatpicking technique. We approached this topic by first having
Tim May record "advanced level" improvisations for nineteen different
flatpicking tunes. Tim selected the tunes and went into the studio with a
list of techniques, like the use of triplets, natural and false
harmonics, note bending, quoting, alternate tuning, syncopation, twin
guitar, minor key tunes, hybrid picking, advanced crosspicking, string
skipping, etc. Tim did a wonderful job incorporating all of these
techniques into his improvisations and we discuss all of these
techniques in detail in the pages that come before the first occurrence
of a given technique.
Volume 7: Advanced Rhythm & Chords Studies
Flatpicking Essentials, Volume 7 is a 170 page book, with 67 audio
tracks, that will show you how to add texture, variety, and movement to
your rhythm accompaniment in the context of playing bluegrass, fiddle
tune music, folk music, acoustic rock, Western swing, big band swing,
and jazz. The best part of this book is that it doesn't just present you
with arrangements to memorize. It teaches you how you can create and
execute your own accompaniment arrangements in a variety of musical
styles.
Volume 8: Improvisation (Part III) & Intro to Swing & Jazz Soloing
The
eighth and final book in the Flatpicking Essentials series teaches you
how to begin to play swing and jazz tunes in the context of a flatpick
jam, including how to learn to improvise over swing and jazz chord
changes. After presenting how to study and utilize scales and arpeggios
in the context of using them as "road maps" for improvisation, and
providing examples of how to build from a simple song melody to a jazz
style arrangement, this book presents three variations of ten standard
swing and jazz tunes. You will learn the basic melody, plus two
arrangements of each tune by Tim May. The tunes presented include:
Avalon, Bill Bailey, 12th Street Rag, The Sheik of Araby, Rose Room,
After You've Gone, St. James Infirmary, St. Louis Blues, Limehouse
Blues, and I Ain't Got Nobody.
The Guitar Player's Guide to Developing Speed, Accuracy, and Tone
This
book (by Brad Davis and Dan Miller) is a 150 page book, with 157 audio
tracks, that will show you how to develop speed, accuracy, volume, tone,
note clarity, and fluidity for the acoustic guitar. Most books teach
you the notes to songs, this book teaches you how to make each note that
you play in those songs sound clear and distinct with rich tone and how
you can bring all of those notes together in a smooth and fluid flow at
any tempo.
The Guitar Player's Practical Guide to Scales & Arpeggios
Scales and Arpeggios form the foundation of all song melodies,
arranged solos, licks, phrases, and improvisations on the guitar. If you
are familiar with scales and arpeggios, and know how to use them, your
ability to arrange and improvise your own solos will be greatly
enhanced. Scale knowledge is the road map that can take you anywhere you
want to go in music.
This new 160 page book (with 136 audio tracks on 2 CDs) by Dan Miller
and Tim May not only teaches you how to learn scales in a way that is
easy, fun, interesting, and informative, it also shows you how to
practically apply scales when learning new melodies, embellishing those
melodies to create your own solos and variations, and in exploring
improvisations.
Most books that present scales and arpeggios will display scale
patterns all up and down the neck and address many keys and many
different scales (major, minor, pentatonic, diminished, whole tone,
bebop, etc). This approach tends to provide too much theory and not
enough practical information about how these scales can be put to
practical use right away.
The Flatpicker's Guide to Old-Time Music
Tim May and Dan Miller's "Flatpicker's Guide to Old-Time Music" is a
160 page book (with 2 audio CDs) that is designed for flatpickers who
want to study the rhythm playing of old-time rhythm guitarists and learn
how to play solos to 11 great old-time fiddle tunes. The book is
presented in two sections. The first section (60 pages) presents a very
thorough study of old-time rhythm guitar. This section emphasizes
learning bass note selection and bass note runs and would be ideal for
any acoustic guitar player who not only plays in an old-time setting,
but any guitar player who plays in a small ensemble that does not
include a bass player. If you play in a duo or trio that does not
include a bass player, the rhythm ideas presented in this book will help
you add a lot of texture and interest to your rhythm playing.
In the second section of the book, Tim May and Dan Miller present 11
Old-Time tunes. For each tune they present the melody, plus two
variations on the melody (intermediate to advanced level). They also
present rhythm accompaniment ideas for each tune based on the rhythm
information that was presented in the first section of the book. On the
audio CD you also are presented with a guitar rhythm track, plus a
mandolin lead track. Therefore, after you can practice your lead playing
along with the guitar rhythm track and practice your guitar rhythm
along with the mandolin lead track.
The Flatpicker's Guide to Irish Music
Tim May and Dan Miller's book and audio CD "The Flatpicker's Guide to
Irish Music" (116 pages) introduces the flatpicking guitar player to
ten common Irish tunes and the theory and technique of Irish rhythm. The
first part of the book discusses the theory and technique of Irish
guitar rhythm, to include right hand technique, chord substitutions, and
bass movement within chords. In a typical Irish session, the lead
instruments will all play the melody simultaneously and the rhythm
guitar player will improvise the chord changes behind the melody. In the
second part of the book each of the ten tunes presented include a study
the melody of the tune, variations on the melody, standard chords for
the tune, and chord substitution variations. The tunes presented cover
3/4, 4/4, 6/8, and 9/8 time signatures and a variety of typical
embellishments that are common to Irish music. The concept of modes is
also addressed as the tunes that are presented include tunes played in
the Ionian, Aeolian, and Dorian modes. Additional rhythm ideas that
include harmonized scale rhythm, Drop D rhythm, and DADGAD chords are
also presented.
