My old editor at Acoustic Guitar magazine, Jeff Rodgers, used to begin his phone calls by inquiring how everything was going at Hamburger Towers. Over time, this undoubtedly only encouraged my delusions of grandeur.
These days I seem to have advanced from Chief Columnist at Hamburger Towers to Chief Ad Man at Fretboard Confidential. And it is that capacity that I am tasked (I believe that's the word the
marketing boys use) this week with communicating two things simultaneously:
First, that the Fingerstyle Five membership contains learning materials in such mad abundance – repertoire, videos, live streams, PDFs and more – that you could wander for a lifetime through its storied archives and never run out of songs, licks, techniques and other cool things to work on.
Second, that there is an accessible, organized and manageable way to engage with
all that material. That, far from being overwhelmed by all that, ahem, content, you'll find song arrangements at both a beginning and intermediate/advanced level, and a clear, step-wise method for making steady, incremental progress in your playing.
However, since we all know you can't trust an ad man (sorry, Gramps), I submit for your consideration instead some unsolicited expert testimony straight from the Fingerstyle Five's community forum.
If
you're concerned about whether you'll be successful taking part in the membership and its lesson material, here's what a couple of long-time members offered this week in the way of encouragement to someone who just joined a few days ago:
When I started, I could barely do the fundamental [beginning] version of a tune after a month of work and made little progress on the improv or arranging. Now I can digest all the material. The way David teaches allows you to
progress a lot over time, as you start to see the same voicings, licks and concepts adapted to each new song.
–Bruce B., member since 2019
Learning how blues chord substitutions work and getting some new voicings under my own fingers has made it so much easier to follow this kind of stuff, which was a complete mystery to me just a few years ago.
–Todd B., member since
2020
So there it is. Only you know whether now's a good time for you to join the Fingerstyle Five, but I will do the rest of my job by pointing out that we'll be starting a brand-new song this Thursday, and kicking off two other new song series over the next couple of weeks.
So if you're like me, and like starting at the beginning of things so you don't feel like you've missed anything along the way, and you've been thinking
of joining the membership, you've got one more day to, ah, get in on the ground floor. You know, as the marketing boys say.
Visit the web site to sign up now:
Join the Fingerstyle Five
More soon,
David Hamburger, Ad Man