Classical Studies for Pick-Style Guitar - Volume 1: Develop Technical Proficiency with Innovative Solos and Duets

First of all, I was a student at Berklee and studied with Bill Levitt. Bill Levitt createdgreat methodologies for pick style guitar. However, I say this with fondness, he hada religious attitude that nothing was played with fingers.I grew up studying with a great Jazz player, Lenny Frank who taught using a pick, using fingers and pick and fingers. But not Bill Levitt. Using the right hand fingers was treated as something evil.While Classical Guitar was finally considered a "legitimate" instrument, there was a schoolof mostly arch top players that were incredible musicians. An example that Bill Levitt selectsas one of the best would be Johnny Smith. It's not unlike Benny Goodman playing a clarinet concerto to get jazz accepted by serious musicians. You have to realize this was all coming from jazz musicians from the bebop era and the great arch top chord solo guitar players.Bill obviously researched through thousands of classical studies for guitar, or in some casessingle note studies for cello or other instrument. He found ones that could be playedwith a pick. Yes, they are great pieces. Yes, they are great for developing clean amazingtechnique. Yes, you should understand the underlying chord theory, best accomplished bystudying the book with a knowledgeable teacher.It's a great book. It's also a great book to play with your fingers but you couldn't saythat to Bill.Bill ran the guitar department with no variations permitted. Students went through theBill Levitt series of books, though very few guitar students ever graduated. To get college credit you had to be able to start at page 60 of book 1. Should a teacherimprovise and teach other stuff, that was outlawed. One should keep Bill Levitt's philosophies and goals in mind to better understand and play the pieces.Each semester a student had to give a recital, selecting a piece from this book, memorize itand perform it before a group of professors for a grade.Bill was a great arranger and all the pieces are sequentially organized in difficulty and learning experiences.All of them are worthy performance pieces. I use the book with students that generallyplay them with their fingers. For example, many of the early pieces are Carcassi studiesand were written to teach how to use one's fingers. Playing them on a pick, great practice,another sound, but many are obviously designed for the use of fingers. Bill's not looking,you can use your fingers too.This book is first and foremost an attempt to help arch top guitar players legitimate acceptance. In the process he created a fine book.I highly recommend it both to pick style players but also for classical studies.

Long, long ago I learned to play an arrangement from Ernesto Lecuona's "Malagueña" for pick-style guitar. It was great, although Flamenco is almost always finger style.The same can be said of the pieces and arrangements in this book. They are at the heart finger style classical pieces, but they sound fabulous on my archtop. And yes, I've played some of these in the past, classical style, on my Hernadis classic. They sound both different and the same, if you can follow me --- the same at heart but different in expression.These are also technically interesting. The pieces start at a lower intermediate level and build up to reasonably advanced. In addition to making some great music, both the right and left hands get a great workout. Applying plectrum technique to what are inherently finger style pieces really develop right hand picking.In short, if you're a skeptic, you're about to be convinced. You can play these finger style if you wish--- right on your archtop if you like--- but please do play plectrum style as well.The only downside to the book is that the scores, while certainly legible enough, are hand-written. Come on now, the publisher could have typeset these without going bankrupt. I'll still go five stars as a rating but four and half would be appropriate.

a classic. i took lessons from one of Leavitt's students from Berklee. he recommended this book ofcourse, when I was looking for a book to learn classical on, but I was still a picker on electric. this is great material, a bit difficult in places, but awesome. my only problem with it is that it has duets. i feel all books like this should be written for solo. but the Bach arrangements, and the Sor and Carcassi are enough material to learn for a while, not to mention the Moto Perpetuo of Paganini. check out Mel Bay modern guitar method, vols. 5-7, which also have great picking classics.

Everything is clearly laid out with suggested fingerings. The book starts easy and gets progressively harder as one might expect.It's a great exercise to practice reading and work on more subtle aspects of your picking technique, like inside and outside picking, string skipping, making sure your notes sound "legato" or flush against one another etc.I'd definitely recommend it.I've been playing for ~ 6 years and have a background in funk, r&b, rock, blues, and lately have been studying jazz.

Brings another world to the ears. The author says use your own fingerings in spots and I do. I also steer clear of barre chords. 1/3rd of book are duets, but there's still lots of good music within the duets.

This is a great book for working on puck hand technique and you also can be musical at the same time, it's a real fun way to work on chops and learn a piece of music. You can't beat it for the price, I had the chance of meeting Mr Leavitt who builded that guitar program at Berklee and he was a genius, this book has help my chops so much.

I'm not the first to say this. This small collection of etudes provides challenging exercise for the plectrum guitarist. These are relatively easy to play, with some practice, but help build confidence in picking technique while sounding musical.I would recommend this for the serious student who has already learned how to play the instrument and is looking to strengthen their control. The etudes are more useful than a lot of the "shredding" manuals that have been published over the last couple decades. Attention to dynamics and articulation is required in working on each piece. William Leavitt left several excellent resources for developing musical skills on the guitar.

it`s increadeble how this arrangements for eletric guitar makes more musical and interesting the study of pick - style. Ay the same time you can improve the solo guitar style and work in the second and third positions of the neck. Great material.

ok

Schlankes A4-Heft (32 Seiten), in der gewohnten 'cleanen' Berklee-Aufmachung, das 21 'klassische' Stücke (Capricen, Walzer, Etüden, Inventionen) 'klassischer' Meister (Bach, Sor, Carcassi, Carulli, Paganini) enthält, mit der Empfehlung, diese mit dem Plektrum zu spielen ('Pick Style') - bzw., die Stücke sind zu diesem Zweck 'aufbereitet' worden. Verschiedene Picking-Techniken (Alternate-Picking, Akkorde, Arpeggios, Economy Picking, String Skipping, Picking Dynamics, etc.) werden auf 'klassisch'-musikalische Weise trainiert, und dabei gleichzeitig das eigene Repertoire erweitert.(Man kann das Ganze natürlich auch im 'Fingerstyle' üben und spielen. Oder beides...)Das Notenbild ist handschriftlich-modern, dabei aber sehr gut lesbar. Tabs sind (absichtlich) nicht vorhanden. (Denn die Stücke sollen bzw. können gleichzeitig als Blattspiel-Übungen dienen.)Für 'Intermediate Level' bzw. fortgeschrittene Plektrum-Gitarristen jeglicher Couleur sehr empfehlenswert, vor allem im Anschluss an, oder begleitend zum Studium der ebenfalls unbedingt empfehlenswerten, aus 3 Bänden bestehenden (Plektrum-)Gitarrenschule desselben Autors (die widerum für den 'modernen' Gitarristen das nach wie vor wohl beste Grundlagen-Lehrwerk darstellt, das der Markt zu bieten hat, imho).

Buena selección de obras, aplicadas en estilo picking en la guitarra, permiten desarrollar técnica y sonido.

This a small good book for non classical players to use it with helping in your solo ideas. It's great for me being a jazz player.

Though I've not finished it yet (not even close, only a few tunes in) the book is good. It's well organised with no page turns mid tune necessary. The pieces work really well on guitar and are arranged well. It's easy to read and I'm really enjoying playing and working on each piece. I really like Leavitt's books, and this is definitely one of his strong ones.