Pumping Nylon: The Classical Guitarist's Technique Handbook, Book, DVD & Online Video/Audio (Pumping Nylon Series)

If you are serious about getting better playing classical guitar this book is a must! It has a lot of skill building songs as well as the Giuliani exercises. Spiral bound so it lies well on music stands.

First, I bought the Kindle version, thinking it would be handy to have the book on Kindle but no, as usual, Kindle renditions of books with pictures are annoying. Pictures, as in the images of the staves of music, which cannot be enlarged so are practically unreadable except if you have a large Kindle and even then.... I get PDF's of music all the time and it's not an issue--only Kindle book-to-MOBI seems to forget that some images need to be larger. So DON'T GET THE KINDLE verions. I ended up buying the spiral-bound version and I'm quite happy about that. The book stays open on the music stand or I can copy out the pages I need for lessons and put them in my page protectors. Why? We write notes on the pages in pencil. Or I don't want to bring a pile of books to lesson, so a few pages are all I need. Easy to copy out for my own use, and you can't print out Kindle pages, either. The contents--well, no one like Scott Tennant for effortless classical guitar technique. The exercises, slurs, pull-offs, right hand agility, left hand agility, stretches (or extensions as you cellists might call them), and also music are here, with comments from Tennant about how and why. And illustrations about nail shape for filing various kinds of nail configurations. The book comes with DVD so you can go online or look at the DVD for dynamic illustration of the techniques. My instructor gave me a set of warm-ups that I recognized were variations of Pumping Nylon, so rather than rely on memory on what to do, this book is a handy guide to illustrate the things to do before jumping into playing a piece. A classic about classical guitar

This is a wonderful resource. It's clever, and has many novel and challenging exercises. I heard from other players that it was well loved and extensively used and I can see why. There's a nice companion video that I've seen on YouTube.

I rarely write reviews but, you need to know how valuable this book is. In summary, I wish I had bought it sooner. When I took lessons years ago, I was taught some of the exercises (spiders, etc), but, I didn't know there was a book that collected all of them. Look, classic/finger-style guitar playing is a challenge largely because of the technical problems that the student has to overcome. Technical issues include: holding the guitar correctly, developing finger independence, striking the strings accurately, developing muscle-memory, making a "clean tone" and on and on. Adding to the technical burden is the fact that the classic guitar is an instrument with limited dynamic range! Take it from someone who has purchased a lot of guitar books (methods, etc), most of which are in storage: If you are serious about fixing your technical issues I HIGHLY recommend you purchase this book. I started doing the exercises about two weeks ago. Since then. my left-hand finger independence has improved dramatically! For a long time I have felt that my guitar playing had plateaued. Working with this book has moved my progress forward again. I liken the exercises in this book to a boxer "jumping rope" or hitting the "speed bag". They are challenging exercises and you'll need to GO SLOW at first to make sure you are doing them properly, but, you will notice the improvement in your playing very quickly. One last thing, a bit of preventative medicine: I've found that "unlearning" poor habits is more difficult than "learning" correctly the first time. I have also known a couple of guitar players who have hurt finger muscles because of poor technique. If you do the exercises in this book you will PREVENT both of these things from happening. With Respect, A Fellow Traveler

highly recommended

Well worth the investment.

The supplied music is not for the beginner like me, but the excercises are useful to me and I can feel some improvement. Note on the spiral edition: the spiral has a wider spine with the title on it so folding it in half to have only a single page is not possible (wont be flat at all)! The audio is not quite useful and relatively short.

As a music teacher this is the first book I make my students buy when they are ready to get serious with the instrument. This is not a method book, rather a manual of how to fine tune your play. If you are looking for a workout to get your hands in playing shape, this is the book you are looking for.

Nach nun einem Jahr mit diesem Buch kann ich mich den meisten Rezensionen anschliessen: ein ganz wunderbares Buch für das Selbstudium geeignet. Es hat mich, besonders mit den Aufwärmübungen und Fingerstudiuen ein ganzes Stück weiter gebracht. Meine Ûbungseinheiten strukturiere ich mir nun mit Hilfe/durch Inspriation des Buches. Da der Autor wirklich alle Phasen im Leben eines ( auch Amateur)-Gitarristen durchgeht, wird mir dieses Buch auch in Jahren noch helfen. Sehr zu empfehlen! Mein Favorit. Very good! I love it. Ich muss noch eines dazu sagen: Scott hat eine ganz besondere Art, das Gitarrespielen sehr "spirituell" zu sehen, scheinbar. Seine Kommentare und Tipps, gepaart mit Zitaten, die auf intressante Weise mit den behandeln Themen zusammen passen, machen es manchmal zu "Yoga"-Artigen Erlebnissen für mich. Das ist natürlich äusserst individuell, aber ich finde diese Herangehensweise sehr schön.

Un must! Spiegazioni semplici e comprensibili, esercizi funzionali. Dopo un paio di mesi ho subito notato dei miglioramenti. Interessanti le sezioni dedicate al tremolo e flamenco.

Great book with tons of information and exercises to improve left and right hand technique. I had not played guitar for a while and was shocked at how much ability I had lost in both hands, having been an advanced player before. I also use Tarrgs's technical exercises to boost my technique but this book was brilliant. There are so many exercises that you can pick and choose which ones to work on such as improving slurs, accuracy and stretching the left hand and improving your reach. Lots of right hand exercises such as improving accuracy, I found I was hitting the wrong strings having lost the automatic memory for this. There is now a great improvement. All in all a very useful technical book to have.

Nicely done

Muy buen libro a buen precio, es un compilado de varios libros para fortalecer y desarrollar tu técnica en la guitarra clásica aparte de material extra, lo recomiendo.