Customer Reviews

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Playing Rock Guitar

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At the age of 42 I picked up a guitar with the serious intention of learning to play. It is now nearly six years later and I am still very much a student. The guitar, for me at least, is a fairly complicated instrument to play well. Also, there seems to be as many methods of learning guitar as there are teachers. I am a software engineer by trade, and my desire is to understand deeply why the guitar is built the way it is, and also, I want to understand enough music theory so that I can apply the guitar to create music on my own. I am not simply interested in memorizing chord charts and scale patterns.

I first stumbled upon David Hodge on the excellent Guitar Noise web site (...). In my opinion, he is an excellent teacher, and in fact it was through his lessons on Guitar Noise that I actually learned to play some actual songs. So, when I found out he was writing this book, I bought it the on the very first day it was available.

I haven't made it all the way through the book yet, but the material I have been through is excellent. In my opinion, this book is a very nice balance between readability, music theory, and guitar technique. Over the past six years, I have accumulated quite a few books in the quest of that 'eureka' moment where I can be like Neo and say "I know guitar". There are not many that really help that much in the quest. This book is an excellent addition to your library for your life-long mission of learning the guitar.

I got this book after a few years of playing a strummy, campfire style of guitar - even on my electrics. I am a Rock fan first and foremost, so what I was playing didn't exactly match my preferences. Down, but not out, I eventually learned what it is that I NEEDED to learn. At that same time, this book jumped into my hands. Sure enough, it covered these techniques, and did so in simple enough fashion so that an old-timer like myself could follow along with ease.

The book is more than just a couple chapters on power chords and a Pentatonic scale. The author talks you through technique after technique in a non-song specific manner. At first I was a bit disapointed that I would not be learning "XX rock riffs" or "XX Rock Licks" as advertised on various websites. Instead he taught me the techniques to perform these "riffs" and "licks" I so often hear about. All of a sudden, a song like "La Grange" by ZZ Top or "For Whom The Bell Tolls" (or really, countless others) made sense to me. I took off running.

Fast forward 6 months. I find myself playing with a bass player a couple of times a month and we're playing everything from the older strummy style I was so used to, to the Rock jams I didn't think were possible for a long, long time. I've even taken a few simple solos during these sessions and could probably do more. What i didn't expect was that even my strummy style'd songs were vastly improved.

Lastly, his handling of theory is easy to read and understand. All books, big or small, must tackle music theory in some manner. It's part of the game. We play a music instrument. We play music. The Music we play isn't based on the oceans' tides or methane PPM in some dairy barn. It's based on the heavily-avoided-by-guitar-players music theory. He does an outstanding job of making the theory being taught relavant to the discussion's current topic whenever possible - which is often - and sometimes even has to tell you that what you just learned was actually some theory.

If you want to play Rock Guitar, Punk, Metal, some harder Country stuff, Blues or even some Jazz, you can do worse than to add this book to your tool box. After-all, techniques are more often shared between genres with the mildest of differences. after you'r done with the book, and this one I promise you that you will complete, it severs as a very handy reference.

Have fun on your Rock journey.

I like the format of the book, as each chapter goes over one or two key techniques. Hodge writes in a conversational style, as if he were right there teaching you. There's a lot of text in each chapter, and you really need to read it to get the most out of the book, rather than just jumping from one tabbed-out example to another as many books do. I'm putting the lessons to the test, and have created a blog in which I'm going through one chapter at a time. Not sure if Amazon will let me post a link to it, but search blogspot for dBchronicle and you should find it (it's [...])

It says "Rock" in the title but the book covers most everything on learning to play the guitar through an intermediate level... it is great. All the basics are covered: exercises, theory, techniques. If you work through this book, then you should be able to play whatever you want.

Sometimes when I see these "Complete Idiots guides.." books I laugh to myself.
"Who would want to buy this?" I usually say to myself.
Though after 20 minutes flipping through the book at a friends house I found myself ordering myself a copy.

It fills in a lot of things I sort of knew but never had a firm grasp on. David is a remarkable teacher and knows how to keep you engaged and make things fun.

It's really worth the price and highly recommended to beginners and non-beginners too.

This is an excellent book for a beggining guitarist.Full of good advice and handy hints.Example;changing from G to C chord start fingering from top down so you can continue strumming.Also check out David's website "Guitar Noise",full of helpful articles,blogs,forums etc and you can e-mail David for advice which I have several times.Just buy it,you won't regret it.

I have enjoyed David Hodge's articles at Guitar Noise.
He writes well and I have learned a lot from reading his articles.
So, when I saw he had released two books, I bought them both.
They are well worth it and useful for a beginner and intermediate player alike.

I think "The Complete Idiot's Guide to..." in the title really does not help promote this great book.

Very clearly written; CD examples are well recorded too. If you do the work, it will pay off.