Guitar For Absolute Beginners

by Daniel Emery

How to play The effective guitar method successfully used by thousands of busy New Yorkers in their classes at New York City Guitar School. Learn the fundamentals of guitar in the motivating step-by-step comprehensive course for beginners from New York City Guitar School. This program cover all the basics of guitar playing, and includes detailed practice session plans, motivating stories and great song examples. Topics covered The Fundamental Habits of Great Guitar Players; Identifying Strings, Frets and Fingers; The Rest Stroke; How To Read Chord Diagrams; The D and G Chords; How To Fret Properly; How To Tune Your Guitar; How To Practice; Quarter Note Srums; The A7 Chord; How To Play With A Pick; The Secret To Memorizing Songs; How To Read Tab and Play Cool Licks; What Are Pivot Changes; G Major; E Minor; D 7th; The Concept of Chord Progressions; examplesThe Small Barre--Gateway To Future Guitar Greatness; Lock Your Hand In With The Beat; How To Count and Strum Eighth Notes; The Gentle Art of Riffing; A Minor (The Saddest Chord); How To Change Between G and C; Rhythm 101--Understand This And You Will Understand How Chords Work; Learn ""The Basic Strum""; Learn ""The Best Strum""; How To Change Chords in The Middle of A Measure; Mixed Rhythms and Split Measures; A Major and E Major; and More. This book is ideal for use with a teacher or in a class, and has also been used successful around the world as a self-study course. Students who complete this book will be able to play arrangements of songs such as ""I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For"", ""Last Kiss"", ""Crazy"", ""Stand By Me"", ""Viva La Vida"" by Coldplay, ""Wild Thing"", ""Knockin' On Heaven's Door"", ""Brown Eyed Girl"", ""Sweet Child O' Mine"", ""Redemption Songs"" and LOTS MORE. For added help, students can visit NYC Guitar School's youtube channel for video examples of the lessons.

100 pages, Paperback

First published February 15, 2009

Reviews

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

This year I have been trying to teach myself guitar. I picked up Rocksmith and had some fun with that, and tried my hand at playing from tablature found online. Unfortunately, I never felt like I was "getting it". On the advice of another self taught player, I picked up Guitar for the Absolute Beginner. It has a nice, conversational format, and takes you from the very basics of how to hold the guitar and how to use a pick, to your first chords. The book is intended to follow a class by a school in New York, but it works just as well for solo play. By the end of the book you are to be comfortable withe the CAGED chords, and have a few songs to play to practice each.

I am not sure that I would recommend this book. It isn't that the book is bad. Instead, I think you can get just as much use out of the Justin Guitar series of videos on YouTube.

So, can I play guitar? No, but not for any lack in the material. I can scratch out the chords, and sometimes even switch between chords in rhythm, but it will take a lot more practice before I feel comfortable.

[Bruce · Rating 5 out of 5]

I never thought I'd review a music instruction book but here it is. I got a guitar just before Christmas and my daughter then gave me this book. Unfortunately I caught the flu, as did my wife and daughter, and I wasn't able to really practice though I could read. It is an enjoyable read throughout and I likely will be re-reading as I work my way through the classes. It is written as an instruction book for a specific Guitar school but has also taken into consideration other schools or individuals. There is a lot of redundancy on the review pages which is to be expected. It does not have a diagram showing the fretboard location of each note of the scale so you'll have to figure that out yourself or get another book or maybe get it on youtube. It covers nine chords showing you how to make them and at the end there are diagrams for each of the chords. I look forward to working my way through this book as it appears to provide a sound basis (no pun intended) for great guitar playing.