The Beatles for Classical Guitar [Paperback]

"The Beatles for Classical Guitar" by Joe Washington contains several standout arrangements that many guitar players would probably enjoy adding to their repertoire. "Can't Buy Me Love" and "Michelle" bounce along with energy and would suit a player interested in Chet Atkins fingerstyle playing. "Yesterday" is a showpiece for a more advanced player without being a show-off piece. It even has a change-of-pace bossa nova style section. "Norwegian Wood" begins with an interesting bass line combined with a repeating tremelo effect using the treble strings. It then shifts to a single note melody backed with bass notes and chords. Then it's all three-note chord melodies with bass notes. The final section repeats the melody utilizing artificial harmonics that aren't too difficult but sound great. The techniques are well explained. The instruction and playing notes are on the pages just before the music for each piece. So the pieces themselves aren't cluttered with instruction notes. Not for beginners. Intermediate and advanced players with find some nice challenges in the book.

I'm not sure how many stars to give because I'm not sure which book the listing is for.

The blurb shows the tune list from volume one of Joe Washington's two-volume "Beatles for Classical Guitar" books that came out in either the late 70's or early 80's and deserve all the praise other reviewers have given them. Interesting, artful arrangements by someone who clearly understood the expressive potential of the nylon-string guitar.

The "Look Inside", however shows an edition of "Beatles for Classical Guitar" arranged by Larry Beekman. With all due respect to Mr. Beekman, while his choice of tunes rivals Joe Washington's, his arranging skill does not.

Beekman's book contains 30 tunes while the listing for Washington's looks like it only includes his volume one. If the listing is in fact for Washington's book, it's a shame they don't bundle the smaller volume two with it.

So which one comes if you order? That's the mystery question. All of these books are notation-only.

If steel-string is your thing, an even more troubling situation exists with "Fingerpicking Beatles", shown as a companion item. The original Amsco edition was by Eric Schoenberg, who was (and hopefully still is) a marvelous ragtime-style player whose Beatles arrangements were completely idiomatic yet rich enough to put the songs across. Unlike Juber, Schoenberg stuck closely to and around standard tuning.

The "revised edition" of "Fingerpicking Beatles" by Hal Leonard is a no-name disaster that appeares to have done by a keyboard player with limited understanding
of the guitar. If you can find a used copy of Schoenberg's original, go for it, otherwise steer clear.

This is NOT the Larry Beekman book (as shown in the "Look Inside" preview), nor is it the Joe Washington book. This is one of "those" Hal Leonard books. The arrangements are accessible for musicians needing to flesh out their gig book or beginning-intermediate students looking for something familiar for study. The credited arranger is John Hill.

The songs are arranged in guitar-friendly tunings and none of the arrangements takes up more than 3 pages, even with the tab. Where there is melody it's clearly delineated. It's helpful that the verse, chorus and bridge sections are labeled. There's some "coda" and DS jumping-about, but that's to be expected with pop songs. I thought it was funny (but helpful) that the arranger clearly pointed-out the "outro" sections.

For what it is, it's a good book. The Beekman and Washington books are better for more advanced players. Those arrangements are more thoroughly developed and more interesting but also more difficult.