FastTrack Guitar Songbook 1 - Level 1 (Fasttrack Series) [Paperback]

Hal Leonard Corp. (Author)

Book Description

Series: Fasttrack Series | Publication Date: March 1, 1997

The FastTrack songbooks were designed to supplement the FastTrack method books, but also can be used independently. They feature 8 great songs by artists including The Beatles, Eric Clapton, Van Morrison, and Van Halen.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Founded in 1947, Hal Leonard Corporation has become the worlds largest print music publisher, representing some of the greatest songwriters and artists of all time. We are proud to publish titles of interest to all musicians as well as music lovers, from songbooks and instructional titles to artist biographies and instrument price guides to books about the music industry and all the performing arts.

Product Details

• Paperback: 40 pages
• Publisher: Hal Leonard Corporation (March 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0793574219
• ISBN-13: 978-0793574124
• ASIN: 0793574129
• Product Dimensions: 11.9 x 8.9 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #133,731 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good for learning some simple songs, December 26, 2008

By 

lazlong (Texas) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: FastTrack Guitar Songbook 1 - Level 1 (Fasttrack Series) (Paperback)

I've been learning guitar for less than one year, and I travel a lot so small song books are a must for me with my Traveler Speedster guitar.

The songs aren't perfectly accurate, but they're a good start, and anyone listening will know what you're playing, with only the purists noticing the differences from the original recordings.

There's nothing worse than learning chords and scales without knowing how to use them in songs, so I use these books to apply the basic chords and scales to songs that I know. They're better than most tabs I've found on the internet, and I find standard notation easier to follow than tabs anyway. I find it much easier to stay in time with standard notation.

Learning these songs will make the early learning process more fun than just practicing seemingly pointless chord progressions and scales.

I bought another book first (I forget the title), and the first thing the author said was that it's important to have a foundation before tackling his book. He recommended the Hal Leonard Guitar 1 series as a basis, and I'm glad he did.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Start your own band!, February 2, 2011

By 

derekriehl - See all my reviews

This review is from: FastTrack Guitar Songbook 1 - Level 1 (Fasttrack Series) (Paperback)

I bought the first set of books in this series, Songbook 1, Level 1, for Guitar, Piano, Drums & Bass about two years ago so my boys (guitar, piano) and I (bass) would have something to play together. Two years later we have a 10 piece band made up of mostly youth (aged 12-18) that uses several songs from each of the books to make up a 90 minute set list. The books have worked perfectly to provide increasingly challenging material for the band to play as the youth have grown in ability. Sure, the parts in the lower level books are simplified and the arrangements not true to the original artists, but they sound pretty good when played, and the important thing is that they have real, entire, audience recognizable songs to play from the outset. Each book provides slightly more difficult material and introduces the youth to artists they will recognize for the rest of their lives. The Beatles, Ray Davies, Clapton, Santana, Morrison, Elvis, Muddy Waters, The Stones & many more. Our goal initially was just to play for ourselves and maybe on campouts, but by the time we got into the second book and found a drummer we had other kids coming to us wanting to join the band and perform for real audiences. Now we play for groups from 50-500 (for free, our performances are a service to the community, and we have no illusions of going any further than this); so, we now have our own little Glee-like band. If you are looking for a way to get a something like this going I have found no other series or set of books that does as good a job. The Fast Track books got us from beginners to a level of ability that we can now play more current & popular tunes from bands like Kings of Leon & Paramore in addition to those from the Fast Track series. Some of our older members are heading off to college now and being replaced by younger performers. The Fast Track books are where we start them. Its a rush to be in the car with the band when one of the tunes they know comes on the radio. The whole car will start rocking out to Evil Ways, Back In The USSR, or Surfin' USA. Well worth the $10-$15 for the book and CD for each part. You would spend way more than that buying separate songs for each instrument from a sheet music supplier and still have no CD to play along with. So, grab a couple of friends to play the different instruments, shell out the $50 to buy the first book for each part, and start jamming! Who knows, maybe we'll see you out there!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book!!!!, November 6, 2011

By 

Davidd - See all my reviews

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This review is from: FastTrack Guitar Songbook 1 - Level 1 (Fasttrack Series) (Paperback)

This book is really great, makes you playing the guitar easily in no time.(together with the manual books)
i really recommend this book to any beginning guitar player!!!!!
hope to see more books from this authors.