Learn to play guitar books?

nc13

I know there are probobly other threads like this one but can anyone suggest a good book to help learn guitar from?

I would really like to learn to play but because I am unemployed, I cant afford the fees for lessons. I have looked at books on Easons website and there are tons of books, but which is the best?

walter sobchak

No purchase necessary
http://www.justinguitar.com/

Blackhorse Slim

I agree with Walter, up to a point. There are plenty of free resources on the net for learning guitar, particularly YouTube, and JustinGuitar is the best I've seen for getting started.

At some stage you will probably want to learn some theory, and there are lots of different approaches, so a good course or book (or better yet a good teacher) can be a great help. Although there are some good theory sites out there too.

But to get started it's much easier to watch someone like Justin showing you what to do than to try to learn from a book.

Good luck!

ciaranmac

I tried learning from a few different books and what actually worked was going to a class. I know that's not what you want to hear though. For me once I paid over the cash I was motivated to get value for it and keep practising every day. The important thing is that practice, once you do half an hour every day and keep pushing your skill level and your knowledge, anything is possible. For years I could only finger two chords and I couldn't change between them. I did those classes last year and I'm flying it now FYI The teacher I learned from is Kevin McNicholas http://www.guitar-made-easy.com

Of all the books I tried the best one was this: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Learn-Play-Guitar-Everything-Fingerpicking/dp/1844513300/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1299803825&sr=1-2 It covers a great deal of theory as well as different tricks and styles of play and in my mind it helped make sense of everything I was learning. But a book can't make you into a guitarist, you do that yourself. If you're an absolute beginner then a free online tutorial would be probably better than a book and justinguitar.com (which walter mentioned) is one of the best I've seen, he has lessons from the very basics right up to guitar god stuff. I go back to his tutorials all the time. Just practice a little every day and keep teaching yourself new stuff.

From this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yh6sPqDEZCY

to this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RVy8QVS8Dw

blueyedson

I would recommend complete guitar player by Russ Shipman. There is about 6 songbooks with various artists and he does a couple of special ones like dylan and the beatles.

The books show you chord, lyrics and strumming patterns or appregio. I found them helpful when starting off, one of the hardest things for me was getting a strumming pattern going.

If your stuck for monies you could check out your local library, they might stock a couple of these.

tinofapples

ciaranmac wrote: »

I tried learning from a few different books and what actually worked was going to a class. I know that's not what you want to hear though. For me once I paid over the cash I was motivated to get value for it and keep practising every day. The important thing is that practice, once you do half an hour every day and keep pushing your skill level and your knowledge, anything is possible. For years I could only finger two chords and I couldn't change between them. I did those classes last year and I'm flying it now FYI The teacher I learned from is Kevin McNicholas http://www.guitar-made-easy.com

Of all the books I tried the best one was this: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Learn-Play-Guitar-Everything-Fingerpicking/dp/1844513300/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1299803825&sr=1-2 It covers a great deal of theory as well as different tricks and styles of play and in my mind it helped make sense of everything I was learning. But a book can't make you into a guitarist, you do that yourself. If you're an absolute beginner then a free online tutorial would be probably better than a book and justinguitar.com (which walter mentioned) is one of the best I've seen, he has lessons from the very basics right up to guitar god stuff. I go back to his tutorials all the time. Just practice a little every day and keep teaching yourself new stuff.

From this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yh6sPqDEZCY

to this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RVy8QVS8Dw

I attended Kevins lessons in Oranmore a few years ago and have to admit if I had kept up the practice everyday I would probably be a good player now but didn't so now I'm pretty much back to square one.

Ostrom

Justin Guitar

Most of what I know has come from his site. Follow his one minute changes exercises and practice routine timetable at the end of each section for best results.

Russ Shipton's Complete Guitar Player books are great because they break every details of the song down with timing, strum patterns and fingerpicking patterns. If you can combine both of these, it quickly becomes very enjoyable.

padraig_f

A couple I like are:

Music Theory For Guitarists - Tom Kolb
Guitar Fretboard Workbook - Barrett Tagliarino
Blues You Can Use - John Ganapes

Each can be got for about 10 euro delivered (I usually order from www.bookdepository.co.uk), which is a bargain.
As they're quite cheap, I'd advise getting more than one to mix things up.

e.g. a theory book, a practice/scales book & a song book (which the 3 above are).

Just they can take a long time to go through, and if you try and go through say a scales/practice book from beginning to end, you'll get really bored & likely give up, so it helps keep things interesting.