The following piece is an excerpt from Mark Hanson's book, The Art of Solo Fingerpicking, available on-line from Accent on Music. Please check out the book for more great solos like this.

Tips on Practicing This Material

1. Strive for good tone. This is critical. The music must sound good.
   
2. Practice the pieces at a slow tempo. You may be surprised at how much better your pieces will sound if you practice them slowly as often (or twice as often) as full speed.
   
3. Isolate trouble spots. Practice each troublesome passage by itself until you can play each note smoothly. Then, resume playing the entire piece.
   
4. Maintain good rhythm. Even when practicing slowly, play at a steady speed. Use a metronome with new pieces.
   
5. Always be musical. Make your pieces sound musical through good tone and steady rhythm, even when practicing at 1/2 speed. Practice diligently!
   

The Ultimate Goal: To make good music at every stage of your development.

This particular song, "Golden Valley" consists of four main parts:

1. The main melody (section A) which is shown in page 1
   
2. The counter melody (section B) which is shown in page 2.
   
3. Restatement of the main melody (section A') which is shown in page 3.
   
4. The coda which is shown in page 4.
   

The form of the piece is A - B - A' - B - Coda. When you repeat section B, the last two measures are replaced by the first two measures of the coda. Good luck!

For the RealAudio version of this example, click here

1999 by Accent on Music All rights reserved. Used by permission.