Best Self-Learning Book?
 

Hi,

If you read some of my other posts you will see that I am just now getting into acoustic guitar. I am currently taking one lesson a week for an hour. I just ordered my first guitar today and would like to start practicing some stuff at home as well. Is there a book or learning guide out there that is better than the rest? What do you guys recommend?

Thanks in advance.

K.

What are you interested in? Type of music? Fingerstyle? Flat picking? Dont know yet?

I am using 3 or so.

-Hal Leaonard Guitar Method 1,2,&3 bound together
-Mel Bay Mastering the Guitar 1A
-Mark Hanson's Art of Contemporary Travis Picking

The first 2 are a little of everything. Chords, flat picking, etc. They teach some scales in there somewhere etc. The later is a good one to learn fingerstyle.

Wayne

Well to be honest I don't know yet--I just started. At the risk of being bashed I'll say that my favorite acoustic guitarist is Dave Matthews and his music is what inspired me to want to learn myself. That said, I'll probably be interested in learning some of his music and his style--whatever that may be.

Thanks! I just ordered the "3 Volumes in 1" from samash. It says they use the book at Berklee so I'm sure it is good stuff and will help me at least practice on the basics. Thanks again for the advice.

For fingerstyle nothing beats Mark Hanson's "THE aRT OF cONTEMPORRY tRAVIS pICKING" ;
http://www.accentonmusic.com/book_detail.asp?qID=5
and the follow up book "The Art of Solo FIngerstyle". ;
http://www.accentonmusic.com/book_detail.asp?qID=7
Take it from me. I have shelves and shelves of guitar books-I could have saved lots of time and $ if I'd known about theses books first.
BTW, don't spread yourself to thin. Stick with a book and work through it - usually takes many months. You are trying to smooth out your playing, not rush through a book. Intellectually guitar playing is not that hard, it's actually getting the muscle memory/timing down that takes the most work. Don't try to work on 3 or 4 "instructional" books at one time.

The other book I HIGHLY recommend no matter what style you are playing is Jamie Andreas book on "Guar Principles". This is not a book on chords and songs, but on how to actually physically play the guitar-how to make fretting and picking/plucking easier and how to get the tone you want from your guitar, and HOW to practice to get the most out of your time. Another book that I wish I had read years and years ago. Goes well with any otherinstructional material you might buy.
http://www.guitarprinciples.com/

Thank you for the further recommendations and advice. I plan on taking your advice on sticking with one book at a time. I guess since I have already ordered the Hal Leonard book, I'll at least go through the first volume of that before moving on to another one. However, I am going to go ahead and get the "guitar principles" book that you mentioned.

Thanks again.

Fingerstyle ...
 

I have to agree with Jeff, Mark Hanson's books on fingerstyle guitar are great. One that he didn't mention by Mark Hanson was "Beyond Basics Fingerstyle Guitar". This is the book I started with and it provided a great foundation for fingerstyle playing and let me easily slide into "The Art of Contempory Travis Picking". You can't go wrong with Mark Hanson's books IMO.

I heard that Fretboard Logic was a good series of books. It gets pretty good reviews from Amazon.com. anyone else heard of these books?

Hey Triggin, haven't heard of Fretboard Logic, but I like the "Progressive" books from Koala publications. Mel Bay's Mastering the Guitar 1A is also a good one, it teaches note reading, chords, tab and rhythm. You can get the edition that comes with a CD, I advise that you do.....then you've got something to jam with. ;-)

Fretboard logic was a good book. "The Skeptical Guitarist" series is better.
http://www.skepticalguitarist.com/
I have the Mel Bay series-didn't like the way it jumped around from topic to topic and followed a "easy" lesson with a harder one. Thought that the Hanson series was much better there.

I just started working with Beyond Basics Fingerstyle Guitar about a week ago, after having begun with his Travis Picking book. The Beyond Basics book is really great and the original songs he teaches include beautifully voiced chords and melodies. Highly recommended. Tg

Just an FYI on the Mark Hanson books...they are considerably cheaper on Amazon.

I went through Fretboard Logic a last year and it really helped me understand scales, solo and improvisation playing. There is also a Video that goes with the book and it helps ALOT!

Does it have EVERTHING about guitar in it? Of course not, but I don't think NO book has it all. I think it is like a jigsaw puzzle. You put it together piece by piece.

There are also books called Fretboard Roadmaps that I studied also that helped me a lot.

good luck! :D

One you might check out depending on your level of playing is Rock Discipline with John Petrucci. I've posted on this before...it's not necessarily a video/book on how to play rock...it's actually a book on how to practice with lots of great exercises and stuff that really help you develop technique as well as how to attack a piece of music and simplify it to get the most out of it.

I took a look at it thanks to a recommendation from Jeffrey here on the forum, and I can honestly say that within a few days I had already seen a dramatic improvement in my playing.

Yay, I did something good. :)