learning books

do any of you use the books found at the guitar shops that teach you how to learn guitar. I am talking about the beginers books mostly. i have a few and was just wondering if anyone else trys to follow lessons in them.

I was taught out of the Hal Leonard series books. They're well priced and they teach you everything you need to know.

^ I remember when I first started my teacher told me to get one of those books.. however I stopped using it cause I hated learning the gay songs in the books aha.

Ah, they're alright when you're starting out. Plus, it doesn't take long to progress beyond "Ode to Joy" and "Greensleeves" and into "Day-tripper and "Sunshine of your Love". There are lots of other books in the series too, like Rock, Jazz, Theory, Scale Charts, Arpeggios, etc.

Yeah it is pretty easy.
Are there any books for an advanced/intermediate player? Even an expert player?

thanx for the reply guys. i kinda like the ode to joy. my neighbor was laughing the other day cause he said he heard me rockin out to jingle bells at three in the morn. lol

Yeah, wish I could remember the names though. There's a really good Van Halen book out there. Even if you dislike Van Halen, this is a really good book to learn from.

It's called Hal Leonard Guitar Method, there are 3 books, I had the Hal Leonard one with all 3 of them (costed me like 12 dollars) That's the one I had anyways.

It would be funy if someone made a heavy metal version of jingle bells, but that would be awesome.

i got the alfreds basic guitar method complete(3 in 1 deal like GB666's) so far it seems to be helping.

Can't help you there man, I'm self-taught.

Get Blues you can use!

It stars off teaching you a couple of chords (ok 3) then shows you a 12 bar blues progression. Then moves on to show some scales and how to apply them with the 12 bar blues.

It was the best book I ever had. but it's all about blues so if you not into the blues then well get something else

But you can self-teach out of a book, just the same way that you can use internet sources to teach yourself.

I started with Mel Bay Modern Guitar Method. It's ok, but sometimes they throw in a song that is way harder than the other songs in the same part of the book.

They also seem to be kind of spotty on alternate picking. First, they tell you to alternate pick notes on the same string. Then, a few pages later they tell you only to alternate pick if the same note appears twice. Then they tell you to downpick the whole time, even if the same note comes twice. I just decided that I would alternate pick almost all the time.

Kinda like what I am doing here ;p



It seems kinda like they should get their shit straight first aha

telecrater: i got a blues book and dvd combo from guitar center fw months back havent really looked at it much yet but it did jump right into the 12 bars a the box pattern for the blues scales. i decided i needed to follow the beginner book for awhile b4 i tried that one. but i definatley wanna be able to play the oldschool blues stuff.

GRX40: yeah i was thinking the same thing about self taught. and i havent found any glaring contradictions in the book yet but i got some lame ass videos on how to play a few songs. one is pretty decent the others are worthless.

Yeah I thing you should check that book out. It realy helped me when i got interested in playing leads and it was so much fun. I have had some other blues books but this one i really could get into.

I teach guitar and i teach out of guitar method series by aaron stang. he also has 'rock shop' and 'song trax' and so on. look into him he's good especially for beginners.

hm my bass teacher showed me a couple books just to get my sightreading up but he advised just going and finding a book for Piano and focusing on the bass clef and seeing when it sounds right