Today I would like to share one of my favorite music books with you. I wrote a little review about it.

Woody’s Variations

To anyone who is interested in fingerstyle blues guitar I highly recommend the music book „Blues Roots“ by Woody Mann (Amazon Affiliate Link).

It comes with guitar tabs, a CD and each song is dedicated to the specific style of a blues guitar icon. There’s some background information and explanations about the guitarists, their styles and the details which the songs focus on.

It’s so funny how Woody Mann changes the titles just a little bit! „Ragged and Dirty“ by Willie Brown turns into an exercise called „Ragged and Clean“. „Baby Lay It On Me“ by Rev. Davis is honoured by  the composition „Honey Babe, Let Me“ by Woody Mann.

I suggest you don’t work with this music book exclusively, because some of the songs (the rhythmic patterns, the blues chord series, the architecture of the songs) are similar in a way. It might get a little boring if you don’t have anything else to turn to. I pick one song from the „Original Repertoire Approach for Fingerstyle Blues Guitar“ at a time and include it into my daily routine until I am able to play it – and then I choose the next one.

I especially love the open and altered tunings section. „So Glad Variations“ and „Fire House Dog Blues“ are really incredibly cool and fun to play. They remind me a lot of Doc Watson’s work. Thank God I like to read magazines and such backwards, because „So Glad Variations“ is the very last piece in the book!