Customer Reviews

50 Easy Classical Guitar Solos

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I am a rank beginner, having only purchased my first classical guitar 4 months ago. I use several method books in my daily practice (Noad, Parkening, et al), but the one I open the most is this excellent compilation by Jerry Willard. It is well organized, starting with easy pieces that get gradually more difficult. The book has both standard notation and tablature.

The first few pieces are easy enough for even an early beginner like myself to play (not like Mr. Willard, of course, who plays all the songs beautifully, but well enough to keep me interested and keen to practice). The songs are simple but very attractive, and I find myself actually listening to the accompanying CD a lot, at work or in the car.

The only reason for not giving this 5 stars: I would have preferred a spiral binding - it is not that easy to keep the book open, and after a few months of daily use I am getting worried about pages starting to become loose. Not a big deal at all, though. If you are a beginning or early intermediate classical guitarist, this book will definitely not disappoint you.

I'm an accomplished flat-picker and finger-picker. I picked this book up a couple of weeks ago and have been learning the pieces in it, and I'm satisfied.

The fifty pieces in the book are arranged in more or less increasing order of difficulty. There is a nice variety of different tempos, time signatures, keys, etc., and the pieces are about as good as they can be at this level of difficulty.

I'm torn between four stars and five stars for this book. The reasons that I've decided on four stars are:

The pages in the beginning devoted to brief biographies of the composers would have been more useful had they been devoted to things like explaining that p means the thumb, a means the ring finger, and general advice on right-hand patterns where the notation does not explicitly give right-hand fingerings.

The notation should give right-hand fingerings more frequently. Very often, I can get the notes in several different ways. My guess is that some of them will build up bad habits when I move to more demanding pieces; it would be helpful to be practicing patterns that will prove helpful in the future.

These are, however, minor criticisms. This is a very nice collection of pieces, and I can recommend it whole-heartedly.

If you are a classical player, you probably shouldn't be picking up a classical book with "easy" in the title, don't you think? I'm a fingerpicker, and when I get stuck in a merle travis rut, this book is a great way to get out of it. Nothing all that hard, but well presented and chosen.

My only complaints are the same as some other reviewers: the biographies would be better replaced with some technical notes (if I feel the sudden need to read about Sor's life, there's always Google). Also, wire-bound would be nice so I wouldn't have to prop up my tuner and a beer can to hold the book open.

I own several other "easy to intermediate" level repertoire books, and this one has some good pieces not found in any of my other books. I tend to disagree with the reviewers who suggest that there isn't enough variety among these songs--I was actually pretty impressed with the selections here. The CD is very good, because Willard plays slowly enough to make it more helpful than if he was racing along at concert speed. I sure wish I'd had a book/CD like this 20 or 30 years ago! I've played guitar off and on for over 30 years, but just purchased this 2 months ago. I took lessons for a few months way back in 1980 to learn the basics of classical guitar, and have mostly played classical since. However, I haven't played consistently because of re-occurring pain in fingers/joints, and also what I perceive as a lack of talent. So I'm still not much beyond the "advanced-beginner" stage. Which leads to my final reason for recommending this package, and why, for me, one little thing was probably worth the 12 bucks I paid: Willard has slightly modified Tarrega's lovely Study in E minor (one of the best pieces in this book), making it easier by eliminating a bar chord that has always been hard for me to play smoothly--and hurt my wrist... And the change doesn't detract from the beauty of the song. I'm now playing it better than ever, and it doesn't hurt!!!

I was actually looking for a decent book on Spanish ballads and I came across this book. This is a great book for beginner or intermediate classic CLASSIC guitar players. As many reviewers mentioned, the pieces get complicated as you go on BUT not necessarily faster in tempo, which is what I was looking for. If you're looking for fast pace pieces (yes, it's a technical term) such as classic Spanish ballads this is definitely not what you're looking for. Yes, there are some difficult pieces towards the end...but the reason they are complicated is that they weren't originally written for the Guitar. And one thing that struck me the most was that on the recording the pieces are played by an electric guitar with Harpsichord sort of effect, which really hurt...with all that, I gave the book five stars because pieces are very consistent and they go from easy to more complicated ones. All of them also have TABs which can be helpful for beginners...it just wasn't the book I was looking for...

I started playing classical guitar a little over a year ago and purchased this book to break up practicing excecises and scales with something that actually sounds like music.

I thought this book did just what I wanted. The book starts out with easy songs and gradually builds but all of the songs are fairly easy. Only a few have fingering in upper positions but does include hammer on's and pull-offs. Some of the chords have been simplified for less experienced fingers. The CD is good in allowing the student to understand how the music should sound-even if I may never get up to the speeds indicated.

This is not a method book. It is not for intermediate to advanced students. Rather, this is a book of surprisingly beautiful sounding yet simple arrangements for the beginning to very early intermediate classical guitarist. Everyone will have a different idea of what 'easy' is, so let's be clear about this. If you're a *beginning* classical guitarist with less than a year of lessons under the belt and the ability to play only in first position (and perhaps just dabbling with second or so), unable to do barre chords yet (or not at all well), you may want some VERY easy solo material to supplement your main lesson (or method) book (like while working through the first third or half of Noad 1). After all, scales and exercises can be boring and you may want to try solo pieces. The problem is that at this point most supplementary solo books are too difficult, even if they're not particularly advanced. Willard's 50 Easy Classical Guitar Solos fits this niche perfectly. The very attractive-sounding arrangements, all in standard tuning, clearly arranged in order of difficulty, and with virtually no barres until near the end of the book, are designed to be fingered with great ease, which is important for the new guitarist who is still struggling with basics like hitting the right strings and frets. The first couple pieces are almost too easy, but pleasant enough, and after you're up to speed you'll probably want to skip those, but there's still plenty in the book to entertain and challenge the beginner. Even the early intermediate student who wants some easy pieces to warm up on or memorize will probably find 2/3 or more of this book of value. There is a nice variety of pieces in terms of musical period, composer, key, tempo and so on, as well. The inclusion of tabs and a CD is a bonus, although the tracks are slightly out of order compared to the book. Overall, I would say that for the right level of student, this book is a true pleasure to play, and worth every penny.

I started teaching myself classical guitar a few months ago. I picked up this book along with another instruction book. Once I learned the notes from the other instruction book, I started playing the songs in this book. They start off simple and get progressively more difficult. The CD is also very helpful in getting an idea of how the songs should sound. As a beginner, I am very pleased with this book. It has really helped me become a better player and get a few songs under my belt. I would highly recommend it.

This is the "tablature edition" : the book alternates the lines of standard notation with lines of tablature. I suspect that some of the works have been simplified from their original form to make them easier to play. Extensive right and left hand fingerings are given on many pieces. The keys are easy, mostly C and G. Dynamics markings are used very sparingly. There are a few half-barres and a few notes on alternative strings. I found that it's just challenging enough while still being playable and enjoyable. One minor quibble: the CD tracks don't always follow the the sequence of the pieces in the book, so you may have to refer to the table of contents to match page number to CD track. It's not spiral bound, so you'll need some way of keeping it open. All in all I'm very pleased with my purchase.

I just got a classical guitar for a gift and have had a difficult time finding music to become accuainted with the instrument. You need to know how to read simple tabulature so some knowledge of guitars is nessary. A excellent book to get started with guitars is "GUITARS FOR DUMMIES" which has a small section for classical guitar. Once you have to basics down, this book will give you a good direction to go. The pieces start off easy and gradually gat more involved and show you a good cross section of music for classical guitar