Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #42155 in Books
• Published on: 2002-08-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 96 pages

Synopsis
Tired of the old ways of playing? Want to break out of a guitar rut? Learn to play rock guitar like a horn section, or a synthesizer or even like a drummer. Aimed at providing advice and direction for the frustrated guitarist, Guthrie Govan focuses on how you can expand your potential by refining your playing techniques, allowing you to tackle more complex riffs and solos. Using some of the most influential rock players of our time this book explains how to develop a more accomplished style, providing advice on borrowing licks from other instruments and using exotic scales, with each example played on the accompanying instructional CD.

Customer Reviews

More text for your money.
Like many good educational books, there's an informal narrative throughout, used judiciously to reinforce concepts or alleviate any doubts the reader may feel towards drier exercises.

The format is unlike most educational books about the guitar I've read. It was a welcome relief to see a lot more writing to explain the usefulness of exercises and how I could use them in different ways as my playing improved.

The introduction is comprehensive, outlining what can be done with the guitar and what guitarists can achieve (through practice). This is quite a few pages and covers the all the core skills in an enthusiastic but systematic fashion, providing lots of practical advice; a reference book in itself.

The topics covered (Exercises, Theorey, Scales and Chords) are well rounded, not venturing far outside the realms of what is immediately useful but making references to guitarists to research if your interests lead you in that direction.

The attention to detail regarding techniques for each exercise is the best I've read. It goes far beyond providing some tablature. At no stage did I feel I'd been left with a strange bit of atonal tablature, the meanest exercises come with a few words of solace, cajoling or a description of the benefits to your playing.

This book is distilled good guitar teacher, balancing the pursuit of technical proficiency with the pleasure of playing and interacting with music and fellow musicians.

The foreword says the book is aimed at guitarists who've got so far and hit a rut. The level of proficiency isn't rigidly determined, and I can see aspects of the book that would be rewarding to any of the guitarists I've ever met, rut or not.

Its good alright
Guthrie Govan is definitely 'the man'. Why? cos unlike many other guitar superheroes he's a student of all styles, not just his own. Check out some of the videos around the net of Guthrie playing ' in the style of'. He can convincingly do them all.

Govan's broad approach extends to the book too. Lots of good advice, and important basics like CAGED that will really help beginners or intermediate players - and bluffers like me - to get better and start hitting more of the right notes.

Its a well written book, but in the layout there could be some more attention to detail, some of the figures are incorrectly labelled, and the exercises go astray by a page or two from the text, which makes playing while reading the text a bit difficult.

I like the advice sections at the start - gives you something to read when you're not practicing!

This is not a 'chops' book, although it does gives some guidance - if you want to get more accurate and faster, better to get something by Petrucci , Frank Gambale or Michael Angelo as well. This book is about making music - expressing yourself - on your guitar.

In summary it's a great instructional book and an excellent CD by Britain's most exciting guitar player

What a guitar tuition manual should be
This is leagues ahead of any other guitar tuition manual I have come across. Every technical step is provided with great insight into background and context, and there is an authoritative and friendly voice in the style. This actually deals with all the established material needed from novice level (which, given the excellent delivery is a good thing). For real cutting edge techniques buy volume two.