You are not logged in. Log In

Flatpicking Guitar Magazine - A Study In Flatpicking: Twenty Tunes and Variations

BUY PDF AND AUDIO CD ($19.95)

Current Edition

A Study In Flatpicking: Twenty Tunes and Variations is ideal for anyone who wants to learn tunes, and variations, from the standard flatpicking fiddle tune repertoire. This is the "ideal" book because author Jeff Troxel provides more than just simple tunes and variations here. In the front of the book he talks about how to think about the arrangement and execution of fiddle tunes (through text and example) in a section called "Arranging A Fiddle Tune." He also provides an appendix full of scale and arpeggio fingering exercises, music theory, and slurring exercises that will help any player increase his or her knowledge of the fingerboard and their technical abilities on the guitar. Working through all of the examples and exercises in addition to learning the two arrangements to each tune that Jeff presents in this book will improve your overall flatpicking abilities and knowledge. Even if you already know arrangements for all of these tunes, learning Jeff's well thought out arrangements will greatly expand your ability to create your own variations and improvisations. Jeff also provides audio files for each tune so that you can hear what the arrangements are supposed to sound like.

Jeff Troxel is a Flatpicking Guitar Magazine columnist and he won the 2003 National Flatpicking Championship in Winfield, Kansas. Jeff holds music degrees from Berklee College of Music and USC and is currently on the faculty of Central Wyoming College and Rocky Mountain College.

Song List:

Three Variations of "The Girl I Left Behind" are presented in the section titled "Arranging A Fiddle Tune"

Then you are presented with two different arrangements of the following twenty tunes:
1) Arkansas Traveler
2) Bayne Water
3) Beaumont Rag
4) Bill Cheatham
5) Billy in the Low Ground
6) Blackberry Blossom
7) Cattle in the Cane
8) Cherokee Shuffle
9) Cooley's Reel
10) Cottonwood Reel
11) Crossing the Big Sandy
12) Cuckoo's Nest
13) Fisher's Hornpipe
14) Flowers of Edinburgh
15) Forked Deer
16) June Apple
17) Morning Glory
18) Off to California
19) Red Haired Boy
20) Whiskey Before Breakfast


The Appendix includes scale exercises, arpeggio exercises, and slurring exercises.