Review #12: The New Art of Ragtime Guitar by Richard Saslow

Is this one of the best or worst method books for fingerstyle guitar? You can learn to play music using a variety of resources including teachers, online resources, and books. Richard S. Saslow’s The New Art of Ragtime Guitar is a fun, well-graduated repertoire + analysis book for learning to play the fingerpicking guitar style known as ragtime guitar.  It is aimed at intermediate and advanced fingerstyle players, although late beginners can certainly take a stab at the first couple tunes.  The book teaches ragtime guitar through studies of 8 tunes of increasing difficulty.  Each tune is broken down into sections with around 6 measures of the music (treble clef and tablature) on one page and a detailed analysis on the facing page.  Full condensed tunes are in the back of the book. Out of the author’s eight original tunes, seven are standard sounding ragtime tunes and one is a blues.  Among the ragtime tunes, there is a bit of variation in feel from upbeat and happy to bluesy and minor to jazzy.  There are also several key signatures and some unique harmonizations.  All of the ragtime tunes utilize an alternating bass line as well as some short segments of walking bass line.  The blues tune mainly uses a monotonic bass typical of the Texas blues fingerpicking style. This is not a method book for learning the basics of fingerstyle guitar in a logical progression from your first notes through to mastery (check out Alfred’s Beginning Fingerstyle, Hal Leonard’s Fingerstyle Guitar, or Mel Bay’s Complete Chet Atkins Guitar Method).  However, there are about 20 pages of introductory text discussing equipment, notation, the ragtime style, and technique.  There is definitely some useful information in this section, especially for novice players.  However, I wouldn’t get too caught up reading this entire section all at once – I would recommend jumping into the tunes which often refer you back to the technique sections of the introduction.  Read the detailed stuff then! Where the book really excels is in its presentation of the music and its corresponding analysis.  As I mentioned before, for each ragtime tune you will see ~6 measures of music on one page and the detailed analysis on the facing page.  This analysis features detailed directions, techniques, and other tips for the 6 measures at hand.  I usually play through the music once, and then go through the analysis carefully, marking fingerings, anchor fingers, guide fingers, etc. into the music as well as into the condensed version of the tune in the back of the book.  The analysis really does give you insights into how to properly play these tunes (and future tunes from any source) smoothly and musically. Authentic sounding fingerstyle ragtime tunes. Good difficulty graduation. You will spend much more time playing music than analyzing music theory.  Online recordings of each tune are available. The book doesn’t get into 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. I recommend using an acoustic steel string guitar rather than a classical guitar since there are multiple tunes that utilize the fretting hand thumb over the top. Independently published by the author via Acoustic Truth.  © 2011, 2017 (2nd edition) eBook: Arranging for Fingerstyle Guitar: go to http://joemcmurray.com/checkout/ to purchase a pdf of my eBook. Riding the Wave: my second fingerstyle guitar album is available on all streaming platforms. Pins on the Map: my third fingerstyle guitar album will be released in January 2024. The first single, "Open Road," was released 10/20/23. Watch it on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/uPBh8sZQsT4?si=EM_wAwnHFqU1VC9C