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Guitar: A Complete Guide for the Player
A practical manual for the modern guitarist, Guitar: A Complete Guide contains one thousand shortcuts to help you play, understand and maintain your instruments. This is the most comprehensive manual for the guitar player ever produced. In clear, straightforward language and using specially devised schematics and photographs, it enables you to get the most from your instrument, to fast-track to fluency in all major styles of guitar music, and to develop an understanding of the true potential of any acoustic or electric guitar.
- GenresMusicNonfictionReference
320 pages, Hardcover
First published November 1, 2002
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
January 17, 2019
This is a huge coffee-table book (10 x 13 inches, 5/8” thick, in paperback) and like all coffee-table books, is an oddity. Who is the intended audience? The book opens with a large section (116 pages) on how to build and repair guitars, both acoustic and electronic, and amps and accessories, along with a pictorial history of the electric. The photography throughout is first-class and the color printing is high-quality on slick white paper. It was all interesting, but more information than I ever need to know. Sure, I enjoyed learning a little about multi-fx units, but I do not need to know proper soldering technique. Does any guitar player?
That introductory section is followed by a clear and informative set of chord charts and instruction on strumming patterns, alternate tunings and rhythm—all valuable information for any beginner. The rest of the book is filled with exercises, scales, and scores in various genres, from rock and pop to blues, metal, and classical. They’re interesting and look useful, and they presuppose you can read. All the music is in three sharps or three flats or fewer, but these are not scores for beginners. And since they’re bound into the middle of a large, heavy coffee-table book, you can’t prop them on a music stand or even hold the book open to the right page very easily, so I’m not sure who would use this material. If you play classical acoustic, do you want to know characteristic heavy metal riffs? Maybe. I found it interesting. Most players do have at least one acoustic and one electric.
Despite the odd eclecticism of its content, I found the book compelling throughout and I return to it a couple of times a year as my skill level increases and find that I can understand and use more of it. In that sense it’s a reference work, and it does have a glossary and an index. I’ve seen it advertised at $10 in paperback, and once in a while on sale tables for less than that. At that price, it’s worth having.
That introductory section is followed by a clear and informative set of chord charts and instruction on strumming patterns, alternate tunings and rhythm—all valuable information for any beginner. The rest of the book is filled with exercises, scales, and scores in various genres, from rock and pop to blues, metal, and classical. They’re interesting and look useful, and they presuppose you can read. All the music is in three sharps or three flats or fewer, but these are not scores for beginners. And since they’re bound into the middle of a large, heavy coffee-table book, you can’t prop them on a music stand or even hold the book open to the right page very easily, so I’m not sure who would use this material. If you play classical acoustic, do you want to know characteristic heavy metal riffs? Maybe. I found it interesting. Most players do have at least one acoustic and one electric.
Despite the odd eclecticism of its content, I found the book compelling throughout and I return to it a couple of times a year as my skill level increases and find that I can understand and use more of it. In that sense it’s a reference work, and it does have a glossary and an index. I’ve seen it advertised at $10 in paperback, and once in a while on sale tables for less than that. At that price, it’s worth having.
May 6, 2017
Świetne kompendium wiedzy o gitarze. Zaczynając od historii instrumentu, przez rozwój gitar elektrycznych, wzmacniaczy i efektów, konserwacje, naprawy i obsługę instrumentu, a kończąc na omówieniu każdego chyba możliwego stylu muzycznego związanego z gitarą, wraz z ćwiczeniami i kluczowymi nagraniami. Rzecz niezwykle ciekawa dla gitarzysty, polecam.
March 13, 2012
If you want to know about the guitar, its inner workings, setting it up, and a thousand things you never thought you wanted to know- this is the book. Can not rate it highly enough.
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October 28, 2017gift for chrisopher
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews