A Guitarist's Wish List
For Xmas, for birthdays, for loved ones, or for yourself, here is a list of inexpensive gifts that will be enjoyed for months and months to come.
FINGERSTYLE GUITAR
Both players and lovers of fingerstyle guitar have some great gift options this year!
CD
My pick for the best fingerstyle CD of 2009 is Laurence Juber's Wooden Horses, which you can buy at Acoustic Music Resource or from Amazon.
A close second is Poppin' Guitars, featuring Laurence Juber, Tommy Emmanuel, Mark Hanson, Greg Hawkes and several more great players. You can purchase this CD/ DVD at Acoustic Music Resource or at Amazon: Amazon.com Exclusive: Poppin' Guitars : A Tuneful of Sherman (CD/DVD Combo)
DVD
A great DVD for the intermediate player is Adam Rafferty's How to Play the Music of STEVIE WONDER. You can buy the DVD from his web site (http://adamrafferty.com/store/)
BOOKS
The best book I know of to start learning fingerstyle playing is still Mark Hanson's The Art of Solo Fingerpicking, which you can order directly from Mark's web site at http://www.accentonmusic.com/book_detail.asp?qID=7 or at Amazon: The Art of Solo Fingerpicking : How to Play Alternating-Bass Fingerstyle Guitar Solos (book and CD) (Guitar Books)
JAZZ GUITAR
CD
My pick for the best solo jazz guitar CD of 2009 has to be Martin Taylor's Double Standards, a set of great duets with himself. You can get it from Amazon: Double Standards
DVD
For the beginning improviser I can think of no better introduction than Robert Conti's terrific Ticket To Improv series. Learn to play real jazz lines as you pick up the vocabulary of jazz.
For more in-depth coverage of improvisation, pick up Robert Conti's The Jazz Lines. In fact, you can improve any aspect of your playing from one of the volumes of his Source Code series, which form a virtually complete curriculum of study for the jazz guitarist. All are available from RobertConti.com.
[Read my review in the November 2009 issue of Just Jazz Guitar.]
POPULAR MUSIC
CD
The big news this year is the remastering of the entire Beatles collection. You can buy either the whole set here: The Beatles Stereo Box Set
or for the complete fan, the mono set: The Beatles Mono Box Set
or if you want to try just one, I suggest Abbey Road:Abbey Road (Remastered)
CLASSICAL MUSIC
CD
You cannot go wrong with a piano CD by the incredible Valerie Tryon. Her recordings of the music of Ravel are superb, as also her Chopin, Liszt, and Mendelssohn. You can find them all here.
EVERYONE
CD
The biggest surprise of 2009 was the fantastic CD Still Strings by Antoine Dufour and Tommy Gauthier. This guitar and violin duo cross all musical boundaries to produce music that is a joy to hear. You can now listen to samples and buy the CD from Amazon: Still Strings
as well as from Candyrat Records
