Is this one of the best or worst method books for learning to play acoustic fingerstyle blues guitar?

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

Another great find!  Beginning Fingerstyle Blues Guitar, by Arnie Berle and Mark Galbo, is a method book for learning to play fingerstyle blues guitar (both solo and accompaniment).  This is first fingerstyle blues books that I’ve come across that provides a great chapter on how to incorporate singing over your guitar playing.  The book is suitable for beginner fingerstyle players who can play basic chords through to intermediate players.  I blew through this book - the material progresses logically with exercises that build on each other and lead perfectly into complete 12-bar examples.  The majority of the book is focused on playing using an alternating bass (Travis style).  Rest assured, if you work through this book, you will build a solid fingerstyle blues foundation and you will learn a few cool 12-bar choruses.  You will still need further instruction to develop your arranging and improvisation skills as well as your tone, rhythmic feel, and fingering choices.

After some introductory material covering blues history, form, rhythm, and picking hand technique, the book jumps right into exercises to develop your alternating bass technique.  Assuming you can already play your basic chord shapes, the book methodically shows you how to play the alternating bass over the I, IV, and V chords in the keys of A, G, and E.  Each chapter presents a new layer of complexity (new melody note options, new rhythms, new fretting or picking-hand techniques, new chord voicings, etc.), with progressive exercises that always culminate in a full 12-bar example.  The authors really did a great job in organizing the topics and calibrating the difficulty progression – the book flows well.  Although the examples of the early chapters sound “major” and bland, they prepare you for the addition of “blue notes” and other bluesy techniques that add some soul to your sound and immediately make your playing more satisfying.  Just stick with it through those early chapters!

Late in the book, the chapter on how to incorporate singing over your fingerstyle blues guitar playing is special.  You won’t learn anything about vocal technique or tone production, but you will learn about the call-and-response dance between your vocals and guitar playing.  You will learn how to accompany your vocal lines (the “call”) and then play a guitar riff or chordal “response.”  First, the vocal melody is provided in standard notation and on the CD – you will want to learn to sing this melody.  Then the guitar part is provided, which you will learn separately before adding the vocals on top.  Then the authors provide alternate “response” riffs that you can substitute into the segments of the tune when there are no vocals.  Players with more experience can improvise their own riffs in these spots.  Finally, you will learn a few turnarounds that you can substitute into bars 11 and 12.  By the time I was finished with this section, I was really jamming out, improvising, and having fun with the example tune.

The book culminates with five complete blues tunes that incorporate everything you’ve learned and jump-start your blues repertoire.  Four of these tunes are traditional and one is an original.  Three are vocal tunes and two are instrumental.

Beginning Fingerstyle Blues Guitar provides both treble clef and tablature for each arrangement.  Minimal fretting hand fingering is provided (sometimes written into the music, sometimes provided via tiny chord charts written above the music, and sometimes discussed in the text).  Picking hand fingering is only provided in the music for the first chapter, although you can always tell which notes should be played with your thumb by looking at the treble clef – bass notes have down stems.  The skill of choosing sensible fingering is important, and you will need to look elsewhere to further develop this skill.

Recordings are available on an included CD.  These will be very helpful to many readers.

The book doesn’t use the modern percussive techniques used by modern players like Michael Hedges, Don Ross, Andy McKee, Mike Dawes, etc.  No thumb slaps, guitar body percussion, or tapping.

Published by Amsco Publications © 1993

My own books:

Fingerstyle Blues Guitar: An In-Depth Study of the 12-Bar Blues in E Major – Books 1 and 2 are available in paperback or as an eBook through Amazon [https://a.co/d/g7Udsso (Book 1) and https://a.co/d/aDbh4H0 (Book 2)].  The first priority of these books is to quickly get you playing a solo instrumental 12-bar blues, and then to build on it until you can freely improvise or “jam.” You should be up and running by the end of the third chapter, and each following chapter will add icing on the cake.

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 upcoming book, Arranging for Fingerstyle Ukulele, will be published by Mel Bay in 2026.

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.