Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #587535 in Books
• Published on: 1998-09-25
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Synopsis
Based upon a set of 20 self-contained lessons this guide to playing the guitar covers a range of styles of playing and includes an audio-CD for the aspiring player to improvise in a karaoke style'

Customer Reviews

A really great book
I've been able to strum a few chords since I was a kid, but having been bought a new guitar for Christmas I was looking for a book showed me the details of how music is put together on a guitar. By this I mean, how chords are formed, which notes fit into what keys, how scales are formed, variations on chords an scales etc... . Not only does this book answer all my questions and more, but it is brilliantly presented, with good clear pictures and diagrams. Excercises are well paced and to top it all off, it's ring-bound too. Great.

If you want to know how music in general and specifically how it works on a guitar, buy this. I can't think of how they could have done it any better.

Abominable, a poor cash in on the tuition scene...AVOID
I am disgusted by the quality of material in this book. There is nothing of any use to any individual in here. Go elsewhere.

I have been playing guitar for 6 years and bought this for a friend to help learn but went through it myself first.

Essential setions of this 'total' guitar tuition are breezed over. Theory is undertaught and made over comlicataed. There are no useful lead or rhythm excercises and basic techniques such as hammer ons and pull offs are not explained in anywhere near enough detail. Far too much space is filled up by unexplained jargon, useless history of obscure plyers and instruments. The section about setting up your guitar, amp and equipment is also bull...

There is also nothing on the best way to use your practice time to gain the most from the book.

Although it claims to be for the beginner, I think you would struggle if you were trying to start here as the book tries to be too comprehensive and cover all guitar styles, instead failing to cover at least one properly. If only it focused on one or two styles specifically.

My main issue with this book is its focus is all wrong. Information you really need or want to know is ignored or breezed over and instead it is filled with useless facts that make your head spin and ruin the experience of learning the guitar.

But enough with the negatives and on with the positives. The positives are different tuition books. Please, please, avoid this at all costs, save your money, there are some far better books to help you learn. I reccomend the following and if you read the reviews on Amazon of the following books you can make your own educated decision, but I guarantee you you will be better off with these:

For beginners who want method and practice, the metal guitar series by Troy Stetina are excellent, don't be put off by the 'metal' title, it is an excellent series and will teach you all the techniques you will ever really need in a no-nonsense way. Read the reviews of it on Amazon and see what I mean about the 'metal' part.(Check out Troy's website for good practice tips and advice)
Also the 'Blues you can use' series by John Ganapes which covers the Blues style and techniques not covered by Mr Stetina. For theory I reccomend the 'New guitar handbook' by Ralph Denyer, 'Fredboard Roadmaps' by Fred Sokolow and Fretboard Logic by Bill Edwards.
David Mead's books are also very well written and focus on the best way to structure your practice when you can mannage a few chords and scales and a few basic techniques. Try his '10 minute Guitar Workout'

All of these books are on Amazon, check out the consumer reviews and I think you'll find out that there are far better tuition guides than this firewood.

I hope that this review will steer you faaaaar away from this shoddy cash in of a book, written by someone who appears to have no love for the guitar and those wanting to learn. LOOK ELSEWHERE!

And finally a book can only teach you so much, investing in one or two lessons, if you don't already have lessons, with a real person will do wonders for your playing by correcting bad habits and demonstrating the very complex techniques.
Rock on!

Good Book for beginners
I bought this book as a beginner guitarist, and up until lesson 5, it was simple and straigtforward, with plenty of exercises. Then it moved onto scales, without much introduction. The first lesson started with simple chord shapes, but then it moved a bit too quickly. Very little musical background is provided at the start, but much is covered later. Once I had a few guitar lessons with a teacher however, this book became a very useful reference, and it does cover many styles of guitar music.

It's user friendly, but as with most guitar books, it wasts a lot of pages on the history of guitar. I'm sure other books can cover that in much more detail, if I was interested in lutes!

Also, when I saw this book, I was severley mislead by the words "Includes interactive tutorial CD". To me, that meant additional exercises and theory to use on you PC, but is just the exercises played on audio Cd, nothing interactive about that, and they are not even that useful!

I'd recommend this book, because it covers most aspects of the guitar, and most styles, but it goes too quickly, and covers a lot of useless ground.