Product Description: The Hal Leonard Guitar Method is designed for anyone just learning to play acoustic or electric guitar. It is based on years of teaching guitar students of all ages, and reflects some of the best teaching ideas from around the world. This super-convenient Complete Edition features the new and improved method books 1, 2 and 3 spiral-bound together, available as a book only (00699040) or book with three CDs (00697342)!
Really good book for price! I got this book set about 3-4 months ago. I've been trying to play the guitar for over a year now. I don't want to play for lessons yet but I know I'm going to have to soon to make sure I go to the next level. Until then though, these are some pretty good books. I'm about finished with the first CD/book and trying to go onto the next. It starts off slow and gets you up to speed quickly. The first book is entirely in normal music notation, and it teaches you how to read it and slowly adds an additional string until you're playing all 6 strings but just the top 4 frets after which is switches to fret/music and chord sheet music. I bought some song books before but they were more for people who knew what they were doing...not for me...at least not yet. I also tried a PC program where you plug your guitar into it and play with the PC and it grades you. That went ok but it just haves you play random riffs over and over and it doesn't teach you the reason why you're playing what you are nor was it any fun since I wasn't really playing any song, even it was a simple song.
This book seems to teach you a little more than that but I'll still end up getting lessons at some point to have someone show me one on one some different styles and how I can progress further. These 3 books/cds should give me a really good head start though. Highly recommended for the $20 it costs.
Good, but..... This book is reasonably priced and good for beginners in general. The only thing I found to be lacking is the short number of songs which go with each "lesson plan". It seems that by page 25, you are expected to play at an intermediate/pro level. To me, I would have preferred that the author included several more practice songs at each level of progression. Also, with the CD they have songs at a slow pace, and then a fast pace. Well, the slow version is easy to learn to play along with, but then the fast versions seem almost impossible to keep up with. Again, this book is very good and I recommend it. The only way to have made it better would to have been to include more practice songs at each level of progression. Best of luck, and remember this: learning to play the guitar is very difficult and requires time and patience. If you think you will play like Jimi Hendrix in 2 weeks, then think again and just keep playing those stupid video games.
Awesome! Never played a guitar in my life, but after 3 days I was reading music and by the end of the first week, playing 3 strings. It's a great book for the beginner, even if you're only 50!
Judge a book by its cover Its red,who doesnt want to own a red book!
but seriously: downs: has tab information saturated compared to qty of music material the 4,5,6 strings are basically glossed over yet any student i teach needs this in qty, especially ledger line notes slow and fast versions of a track are on 1 track number
ups: the backing tracks,they rate! amount of information presented the binding is spiral!no more fantasy where publishers dont expect the books to be opened
summary any teacher of young students will need the easy pop melodies and easy pop rhythms series to complement this (or other stuff). this book is a lot less value without the cd's,rather minimal on its own,the written musical material doesn't give much joy. why does it have tab? why does the guitar student continue to be treated like a special citizen.get rid of it. throwing in some pictorial reminders of left hand techniques and other things like this would make a huge difference, even more so to anyone attempting this book on their own. and the chords begin in a strange manner: c & g7,practise the 1 finger version then do the real one.its a big step using those chords as examples, especially when the bass notes of those chords have not been dealt with yet.
Great primer... A very good primer for the beginning guitar student. Well written and easy to understand.
Anything Goes Trivia
Trevor
Megaton Man
