Advanced Fingerstyle

Michael Langer, born in 1959, is a guitarist with a classical degree from the University of Music in Vienna and was the winner of the ‘1989 American Fingerstyle Guitar Festival’ in Milwaukee, USA. Since then he has toured regularly throughout Europe and the USA. In 1993 he was named the best ‘acoustic fingerstyle’ guitarist by the US magazine, ‘Guitar Player’ in their ‘Ultimate Guitar Competition’. Michael Langer has published many solo CDs and leads a guitar class at the Bruckner Conservatory in Linz.

Split into three topic areas, the author has dedicated his whole book, ‘Advanced Fingerstyle’, to the topic of fingerstyle guitar. In part 1, the player will work on well-known fingerpicking techniques such as hammer-ons, pull-offs, slides, bending, Carter picking and double stops. In part 2, the different styles of fingerpicking guitar music are discussed: beginning with folk and country, through blues, ragtime and gospel, and rounding off the chapter with pop and jazz. In part 3, the musician will learn about the historical development of this music, using examples from nine musicians from the 20’s (country blues), the 50’s (folk and country picking) and the 60’s up until today. Here you can also read in more detail about the important stages of the musicians’ lives and their particular techniques, before working on these with the many licks and example songs. Among the chosen musicians are Mississippi John Hurt, Blind Blake, Chet Atkins, Guy Van Duser and Michael Hedges. In this section, you will also learn additional techniques like tremolo, flageolet, string crossing, slap bass and chord brushing.

In the attachment, the guitarist will find everything about open tunings and other interesting string tunings (historical, modal and open chord tunings), which differ from the classical tuning and create particular effects.