Pumping Nylon: The Classical Guitarist's Technique Handbook, Book & DVD

by Scott Tennant

Simply put, this is the Holy Grail of classical guitar resources. Born from a daily warm-up and exercise routine, enhanced with previously unavailable technical information and blessed by Scott Tennant (the holy master of classical guitar himself), comes the best-selling series, Pumping Nylon. Learn to turn every note you play into an inspirational musical experience by improving your accuracy, precision, control, synchronization, speed, focus and stamina. Essential information and a great sense of humor unite in this comprehensive technique handbook for the classical guitarist. 96 pages. DVD running time: 1 hour 57 minutes.

Genres: Music, Reference, Nonfiction

95 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 1995

Reviews

[Christopher Barry · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a middle-aged guitar player who has taken a decade away from practicing seriously and returned to playing again in the last year, this book was exactly what I was looking for. I play for enjoyment and for the pleasure of improving - this book will give me several years of focused practice, and build the foundation for what I hope is the rest of my life of playing. It's also got the cheesiest cover and title in my stack of music books.

I'm not strictly a classical guitarist, I just use classical techniques because they are the easiest for me to translate to different styles. I wish I was given the finger independence exercises as a teenager and the right-hand studies when I was learning finger-style in my early 20s. Those alone are worth the price for me.

The publisher and author also deserves thanks for the simple binding that sits flat on a music stand.

Book is standard notation and assumes that you can read music. It is not for beginning beginners.

[thuys]

I find the study way too difficult compared with the corresponding excersice. The rest is fine, simples and hards, alls there, Im still working on it. Very useful, that part of nail.

[Despina Ioannou · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's time for this cover to change though

[Brent Woo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome. This will be the daily driver, the book you pick up to warm up and start a practice session. Chock full of interesting and useful exercises that hit at the difficulties unique to each hand. To be clear, the core handbook is not intended to be method: it does not progress in difficulty and does not really walk a beginner through fundamentals. It's not meant to be read front to back but to serve as a exercise reference, where you check in at various points to get pointers and exercises on particular techniques. So a absolute beginner probably would want to start with the Noad or Parkening or Werner methods. The core handbook rep is also kind of ridiculous, for example the third piece presented is an insane concert slur study: May the Notes Be with You. But this 'Complete Edition' sort of fixes these issues by providing a lot of selected repertoire that does progress in difficulty, from beginner to advanced pieces, so a player can follow that to progress and better gauge their development.

[Rob · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book of drills to enhance your speed, precision, and technical skills on the classical guitar. Includes notes from everything regarding right and left hand techniques, how to properly cut the nails for the best sound, and a wide variety of information beneficial for all players. The drills in the book are mostly for intermediate and advanced players, though a motivated beginner will also find much useful information.

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the gold standard for books of classical guitar exercises –

playing through the classic set of Giuliani’s 120 right-hand arpeggio studies, and studying the section on synchronization of the right and left hand (along with lots and lots of slow, persistent practicing!) has probably shaved years of my development as a guitarist.

More than a few exercises in here are currently beyond my playing ability – I suspect I will be reaping the rewards of this book for a long time.

[Victor Tittle · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've had this book and used it so long that I've worn it out, thankfully I've memorized the material within.

[Moud Barthez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing book to improve your fingerstyle guitar skills