This is a great method book for learning to play solo fingerstyle arrangements. I bought this at the same time that I bought Mark Hanson's "Contemporary Travis Picking" but it took me a long time to cross the gap between the two books. "Contemporary Travis Picking" may be the best book for the very basics of fingerstyle guitar. Even at the end of that book, there are songs which are much more challenging than the rest of that book, and those songs ("The Water is Wide", "Hesitation Blues") are a good lead-in to this book.
In this book, Hanson breaks the reader out of the patterns that are taught in the earlier book. But to me it really necessary to take extra time and learn as much material as I could to master the patterns. Even the stuff at the very beginning of this book was too hard for me for a while. So I put this book down and came back to it several months later.
When I did get back to this book I found that it continued the excellence of the Travis picking book. There are plenty of exercises to develop the techniques. The songs are really really well arranged and very satisfying to play.
The thing in this book that is pretty telling to me is that Hanson congratulates you at quite a few points. Eg at the end of one excercise he says "Congratulations, you are well on your way to becoming a top Travis picker" or something like that. And he's not kidding, this book gets you far beyond routine things.
Get more detail about The Art of Solo Fingerpicking : How to Play Alternating-Bass Fingerstyle Guitar Solos (book and CD) (Guitar Books).
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