Best book for learning the guitar?
 

Hi

I wondered if people had any recommendations for the best book to learn from?.

I have got Guitar for Dummies and I must be a real dummy because I find the style a bit too academic. on the other hand I did not like the Ernie Ball book at all.

I can't read music and all I understand at the moment is what a chord is.

Is there a really good book out there for the absolute beginner that eventually takes you to the next level?

The "Skeptical Guitarist" books by Bruce Emery are excellent...you can order them from his website, or Amazon...

Start with "Guitar From Scratch", and it's sequel, and you'll get a good foundation...he's an excellent teacher with a sense of humor..

Thank you. These do look good. I've emailed his website to see if I can obtain some of them in the United Kingdom for a realistic price, ie not the £84 per book quoted by Amazon UK.

The Mel Bay and Hal Leonard books are also very good.

Keep it simple. Go to a music store or online (search for guitar music) and find a song book that has songs you know in it. Then pick a song and then teach yourself the chords and play along as you hum or sing. Best way to learn at first.

Basically you'll want to learn the following first position chords:

C
D
E
F**
G
A

**F and B are a story, but F is the first one to tackle, and takes a while. If you get to a song that has a B chord in it, come back and we'll give you a simple one to use at first.

My theory is that you don't learn the guitar. You learn to play music you really like and pick up the guitar part along the way.

Pick the music you want to play and then find something that tells you how to play that music. I've never seen a concert based on a highly skilled guitarist playing every scale he knows.

Thank you for your advice. I am burning to play the songs I like but I think I need to get the chord positioning right first. I have learnt all the chords you mention apart from F. But I am finding G very difficult to play without buzzing.

My two favourite songs are Stairway to Heaven and Mrs Robinson. Having looked at a chord diagram for Stairway I think I would need a brain implant to attempt this. But Mrs Robinson looks doable although it's got a B Chord in it.

B chord = xxx442, grossly simplified, but it works when singing.

Practice.

Stairway will come eventually. Do you have the correct tab for it? (The Am and bass line is played at the 5th fret position, not first position)

A well traveled path I've beaten feet down and blazed a few of my own. Well put. Crazy thing about its simplicity is you will develop an ear faster on that path than following any other method.

Need a like button for this comment.

https://www.justinguitar.com/index.php

You can purchase all of his material in book or DVD form.

+1 on this suggestion. Check out his beginner course, it covers a lot of material and his presentation/personality are great. The prices for the online material in book or DVD form are very reasonable and he offers some pretty good songbooks.

I have the justinguitar, Skeptical Guitarist and dummies books and found them all useful. I went with the justinguitar since I found the videos helpful. I use the other two for reference when I have a question.

However, that's me and my learning style. What's your learning style? You might want something totally different. Go to a good guitar store when you have some time and look through all the books. Find one that you like. Even if you decide to go with a song based approach it's nice to have a technique reference.

Also, if no one else has mentioned this. Don't expect popular songs. The royalty payments are so high that book companies can't pay them and still sell the books at a reasonable price. Just use what they give as a learning tool and move on.