Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1523 in Books
• Published on: 1993-08-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 80 pages

Customer Reviews

what a bargain
This book is cheaper than one issue of any popular guitar magazine and less than half the cost of a guitar lesson,
so you would have no right to expect the quality of guidance contained in its pages.

And yet this is the only book I have seen (yet) which gave me any practical hook into learning my way around the fretboard, rather than a cold slab of notation on a diagram (the typical presentation from what I have seen).

Guaranteed it won't be the only book you'll want or need, but to get you off the ground I couldn't recommend this book highly enough for its practicality.

Worth more that every penny spent.
Consider this. I bought this book (including the postage) for a total of £5.56. now if you consider that a single 1/2 hour guitar lesson will set you back upwards of £15 this is an absoloute bargain. I have been playing for over 20 years and have been a frequent dabbler. I've done this and that, but never found a way of bringing together what I understand about music.

What this book does, is bring those loose strands together and put them into 12 achieveable lessons. I am currently at about lesson 5 and have been amazed at how much I actually understand about scales, chord formations and key tones.

I would recommend that the reader have some basic understanding of the guitar before using this book, but it is not essential. If I were beginning I would look at something like Begin Guitar - by Douglas J Noble as this will give you the understanding of the easier open chords. This book focuses more on barre chords and sliding scales, which could be daunting for the beginner.

This book has already made me consolidate what I understand and has taught me a lot. I will definitely be purchasing the Fretboard Roadmap Rock book when I am done with this one. Highly recommended to all, especially intermediate player. This book will improve your playing!

A typical 'roadmap' book - first class.
There are several books in the 'Roadmap' series and they all share the same attributes. This one is no exception and is slightly better than most.

They all cover pretty standard ground in terms of popular licks, phrases and 'boxes' within which to play and improvise.

Despite brief introductions, they all assume at least some familiarity with the guitar fretboard and the reading of either notation or tablature. It is fair to say that to get the best out of these books, you do need SOME experience. Raw beginners might find this particular book a bit heavy going at first because it moves fairly rapidly from one technique or style to another and doesn't set out to teach you in an especially linear way. If you're that new to the guitar, think of this book as one to grow into once you have some basic knowledge and experience.

All roadmap books cover a lot of ground in very little space in both great detail and in a well-developed style that is very easy to follow.

In short - the 'Roadmap' series set out to provide you with a good repertoire of skills and licks and then show you how to develop them in your own playing.

Briefly, the content of this book covers the following topics:

the fretboad
the major scale and intervals
barre E and A chords, root notes and simple progressions
I -- IV -- V chord family, moveable chords and basic blues
D -- A -- F roadmap and inversions
chord fragments, families, licks, strums and arpeggios
circle-of-fifths progressions and how to use the whole fretboard
learning many differerent chord types
moveable major scales and playing melodies
moveable blues scales
major pentatonic scales
a moveable double-note lick for country, blues, rock and R&B (and that's the true 'Rhythm 'n' Blues' not the modern mish-mash of soul/hiphop and urbanised grumblings as chanted by groin-grabbing wailers).

Of all the books in the 'Roadmap' series, this one sets out to do slightly more in that it lays down a foundation for all the other styles to be built upon. Thus many of the topics are looked at again in some of the specialised books (eg: bluegrass and folk). But this is not a weakness or an easy get-out.

Highly recommended for anyone who wants a good introduction to ideas that they can learn, develop and tghen make their own.