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

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.

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

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

Well worth the investment.

highly recommended

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.

Hanon is the Scott Tennant of piano.

I purchased this updated version mostly because I couldn't lay my hands on the video after two moves. Very happy with the purchase and updated video, it includes both the DVD and Purple player versions.