Customer Reviews
Get a lesson! - By: C. Bowers, 14 Feb 2008 
I bought this for my son who wanted to learn. What a waste pay for a few lessons with a teacher quite cheap for kids. Used for a couple of days then discarded. Anyone who has been playing more than a month will find this a waste of money.
Dont be a Dummie buy this book. - By: BRIAN S. BECKWITH, 12 Jan 2008 
This book is brilliant from basic through to very advanced.The book plus the C/D I might had must of taken ages to format,ending in a great product.Even if you only learn to play basic guitar,you have not wasted your money.If it was 3 times the price it would be cheap.There are over 380 pages or good info & the C/D OF course.I suggest anyone interested should take advantage of the excellent price currently at Amazon.co uk.I Per sonly think you could sell it on after use for a return of your purchase price [honestly].By the way Jon Chappell as a hand in this book along with Mark Phillips.I would recommend buying both for £15 You wont be sorry.PS i have also wrote a review on Jon Chappell,s DVD.Hope this helps Sincerely Brian B
Brilliant for beginners - By: M. J. JACKSON, 26 May 2007 This takes you from absolute beginner to the point where you are sounding pretty competent in a nicely structured A -> B -> C fashion. It starts off with basic stuff like the most common open chords & how to play simple melodies using tab then goes on to the more difficult stuff like barre chords & techniques like string bends in a solo. The final part of the book deals with techniques related to specific genres - rock, blues, folk, jazz etc.
I've looked at a few how to play guitar books & this one was definitely the winner. The range of material is reallly good - from basic to advanced you cover quite a lot of ground technique wise & the music is pretty varied & more interesting than a lot of other books that I've looked at. Everything is explained clearly & you don't have to know anything about reading music or musical theory to be able to use it (though some of this is mentioned in passing to give you some idea of what's going on). At the end of the book I was definitely a much more confident guitarist than I was to begin with so it definitely did what it was supposed to. I particularly liked the sections covering different genres of music - being able to relate the techniques that you've learned to the specific types of music you want to play is a big plus which not alll "how to" books actuallly do incidentallly. The CD is very useful & easy to use.
Ok a few gripes with the style - I don't reallly share the authors sense of humour & for that matter his taste at times (thinking of the greatest guitarists lists etc) but these are pretty minor. Stylistic & taste issues aside this book is great in terms of actual information. If you want to start learning guitar you can't go far wrong with this.
Brilliant book and value for money! - By: Mark Twain, 30 Mar 2007 Amazing book! i bought 'Ernie Ballls's' tach yourself guitar for the same price & is nothing compared to this encyclopedia of Guitar! I've only had it a few days, & already i'm amazed by the size (value for money), the simplicity, the amount of stuff it teaches you, & the quality standard of the CD, which features a tuning track, so you can always ensure your guitar is in perfect order. The CD also has about 98 tracks, alll incredibly useful, & a mp3 files that works on PC & Mac.
The book includes how to play the guitar, how to buy a good guitar, how to look after your guitar, accessories for your guitar, different styles, & much more!
This is definately worth your money! Buy it NOW!
think your music illiterate?...think again... - By: A. Haynes, 08 Jan 2007 Having recently bought a guitar having never played one before & did not want tuition, I was looking for a book that I could use to teach myself. This guitar book had excellent reviews & rightly so, after just three days I was strumming simple tunes. It reallly is a fantastic book. It sets out alll the chords & sheet music simply & don't worry if you can't read music because with this book you don't need to. Everything is laid out so beginners can understand straight away & it also has a good amount of humour to go with it aswell. This book is a must have!
