Guitar progress report: August 2026

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After about nine months of serious guitar practice, I've reached the point where progress is apparent but deficiencies are also becoming clearer. My studies now divide into two broad streams: acoustic fingerstyle and electric blues soloing.

Acoustic fingerstyle

The attraction of fingerstyle lies in using the guitar as a self-contained instrument, combining bass, harmony and melody in a complete solo performance. It remains my principal interest and, plainly, a long-term undertaking.

I am approximately two-thirds of the way through Berle and Galbo’s Beginning Fingerstyle Blues Guitar. I am currently working on alternating and walking bass, chord inversions and chords in higher positions. The book concludes with several integrated pieces in traditional blues styles.

My principal limitation is that my thumb and finger movements are not yet sufficiently independent. I can maintain an alternating bass beneath a simple picking pattern, but the treble notes remain tied to that pattern instead of developing into a freely shaped melody above it. Realistically, that is probably what one should expect at this stage: I have learnt some coordinated patterns, but not yet the ability to vary the melody freely while the thumb carries on regardless.

The immediate plan is therefore to complete the present book without rushing its final material, study all the concluding blues pieces for what they teach, and bring at least some of them to a secure and musical standard.

After that, I intend to move on to Joseph Alexander’s Fingerstyle Blues Guitar. That should extend the same underlying skills: alternating-bass control, finger independence, blues vocabulary and the ability to place more varied melody lines above the bass.

Working on technique alone can be pretty tedious and also doesn't really calibrate progress. I am also working on several accessible and personally interesting acoustic performance pieces: Sunshine of Your Love in an acoustic version, Here Comes the Sun and Killing the Blues. I also have the Paul Simon pieces Stewart pointed me to previously to return to later. These provide something recognisably musical alongside the technical exercises and expose my limitations.

Electric blues soloing

My interest in amplified blues guitar goes back to my early teens. Very little in popular music matches the emotional force of a good blues lead guitar. Unfortunately, my current abilities remain at the most basic skill set. I have to work on:

• improving picking-hand accuracy, string selection and string crossing;
• developing effective muting and control of unwanted string noise;
• consolidating scale positions while learning the locations of root notes and other important intervals;
• developing controlled bends, vibrato, timing, rests and phrasing; and
• connecting adjacent areas of the neck rather than remaining trapped inside one memorised scale box.

I am finding James Shipway’s Blues Soloing for Guitar, Volume 1: Blues Basics useful because it provides a structured syllabus rather than an assortment of famous solos to imitate. Work on the first of its five solos has already exposed weaknesses in string selection, picking accuracy and coordination.

Occasional work on existing songs, particularly material by Cream, will provide some variety and allow the new techniques to be used in a familiar musical setting. The Shipway book will remain the main line of study as it's extremely systematic.

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