Review #18: Alex de Grassi Fingerstyle Guitar Method

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.

The Alex de Grassi Fingerstyle Guitar Method, written by fingerstyle legend Alex de Grassi and produced by Stringletter (the publisher of Acoustic Guitar Magazine), is a method book for learning to play solo fingerstyle guitar.  You will learn many of the nuts and bolts that bolster de Grassi’s technique, musicality, and general style.  This is an amazing book (a 192 page tome of information!), but it is dense and highly technical.

If you are thinking about investing your time into this book, consider what sub-style of fingerstyle you are interested in. Listen to Alex de Grassi’s playing to see if that is the direction that you want to go in. I personally love his playing – he uses a lot of classical technique, he has incredible control and clarity, he is extremely melodic, expressive, and musical, he tastefully uses some modern percussive techniques and cross string ideas, and he plays music that sounds like a blend of folk, Celtic, and blues. If you want to play like Chet Atkins or Tommy Emmanuel, start with a different book. If you want to play like Andy McKee, Preston Reed, Don Ross, or Mike Dawes, this book has several very applicable chapters and isn’t a bad stepping stone. This is a great book if you want to be a well-rounded and precise player.

De Grassi claims that this book is for beginner through advanced players. The first half of the book certainly contains a lot of “beginner” fingerstyle information, but I highly discourage beginner players from starting with this book as their first foray into fingerstyle guitar. There are more approachable books with easier arrangements and less text. If you are a big Alex de Grassi fan and you’re dead set on going through this book as a beginner, it would be helpful to work with a teacher and/or to supplement it with another more beginner-oriented method book (see my other videos/reviews).

I think that this book is very beneficial to a late beginner or intermediate player who can already smoothly play some solo fingerstyle arrangements. This book will tweak your physical techniques, your tone, and your artistic touch (phrasing, articulation, dynamics, etc.).

Overall, the 2nd half of the book is very “heady” with many advanced concepts that beginners don’t need to bog themselves down with. These concepts include difficult cross-string ideas, reasons to use alternate tunings, complex rhythmic ideas (cross-rhythms), modern percussive techniques, and ways to add depth and dimension to your sound.

The repertoire in the book consists of traditional tunes and the author’s original tunes. There are several full song arrangements, but most of the examples are song fragments. De Grassi breaks down these fragments in great detail in order to demonstrate the topic being discussed in the text.

There is SO much detail in the descriptions. He gets into the nuances of how to physically perform a technique, where to place your fingers, how to control note durations, etc. The text is very dense, and it took me a long, long time to get through it. I recommend listening to each (wonderful) audio example, then reading the text pertaining to that example, and then playing that example. You will likely need to repeat this process multiple times for each example or topic.

The audio recordings are invaluable for hearing the artistic details, ornamentation, and complex rhythms of the examples. I don’t think I’ve ever been so tied to the audio recordings of a method book.

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 in 2012.

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 at 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.