Customer Reviews

Guitar Total Scales Techniques and Applications: Lessons for Beginner through Professional

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Well, I bought this book when I was just starting and when I opened It seemed to me so hard. Well, I decided not to leave it behind and I started to practice. I can tell that the information in the first 30 pages will keep you busy for so long time. Mastering just the first scales and their applications will teach your left hand how to travel up and down the neck of your guitar. I still use those first applications to warm up. As I'm still more related with acoustic guitar, some applications (like hammering) I can say are not so useful, but, with the electric guitar, are incredible. Take this book, a lot of patience, hard work and you'll see results.

I own this book and consider it priceless! To date I've never found a guitar book that so clearly explains its contents. The beginning of this book is very beginner friendly and progresses at a steady rate getting you used to playing all over the fretboard. The author has you achieve this by using 3 finger patterns. Each scale position points out major and minor root notes, so you can easily change things up. Although this is a book on scales, Sternal does introduce basic chords on page 18 which can be used with the scale to write music. You don't need to memorize each scale position because pages 19 through 88 has you repeating them when new techniques or applications are introduced. This alone has helped me become familiar with the entire fretboard of my guitar as well as every cool trick I've ever heard or seen in concert!

The second half of the book introduces modes and key changes. Not only does the author clearly explain how to change keys, he also does the work for you. Every key change is written out for the entire fretboard. Cultural and exotic scales are also included, and again written for the entire fretboard. The entire book is written with staff connected to TAB, just like most magazines and song book transcriptions. It also includes a CD which the author narrates and performs the entire book.

I own over 70 guitar books, many of which have left me frustrated and confused. Total Scales Techniques and Applications has proven to be the most amazing tool I've ever seen for guitar players. This book has taken me by the hand and made me a very advanced guitarist.

This book is a pretty good value, especially at it's new, reduced price and the addition of the CD. (It was still a good value at $24.95 with no CD.)

Mark really set out to make the best scales book when he designed this, and he has succeeded. Anyone can make a book about scales, but what makes this book a winner is all of the techniques and applications you'll learn to use along with these scales. You'll learn there are a lot of things to do with a single scale! Unfortunately, this IS NOT the last guitar book you'll ever need! If you want to be a well-rounded player you're going to have to check out another book.

(I recommended Modern Method for Guitar: Volumes 1, 2, 3 Complete by William G. Leavitt)

My only complaint about the book is that he features an acoustic guitar on the cover, and if your guitar is not a "cut-away" you will have difficulty reaching to play all of the notes in this book. And then there are a few scales that reach the 22nd fret, which you probably won't find on your acoustic. You can still play a good deal of the scales on any acoustic, but I thought it only fair to mention this for any of you acoustic players.

Still, for a scale book, this one is #1. Mark has put so much effort into preparing this book! He has rewritten it many times to make it perfect! I had the opportunity to speak with him and he really cares that people succeed on the guitar, and all of that care has been put into this book. You owe it to Mark AND to yourself to check this book out.

P.S. If you have already purchased this book and did not get the edition which included the CD, it is available as a free download off the author's website!

This book is great if you prefer learning scales in written TAB. I personally, associate scales better with fret board patterns and shapes rather than TAB. If I tried to switch gears and start learning additional scales with TAB, this book would be fine. But I starting learning scales by breaking down the fretboard into shapes and patterns. So if you are more of a visual person and memorizing shapes and patterns comes easier than memorizing TAB, this may not be the book for you.

Very good book that expalains everything about guitar theory from technique to rhythm. First the author gives basic music theory, shows you all guitar techniques and variation, then comes the scales/modes and chords. In the scales section the author shows scales in all keys and also shows how to play them with rhythm. The only thing that does not quite appeal is the layout of the book, that looks very simple. If the book had a better "modern" layout, I would give it 5 stars.

Mainly it is a very good book.

Mark Sternal's Total Scales Techniques and Applications is an absolute musthave for anyone wanting to embellish their guitar soloing chops. Everything in this book is clear and concise for the ambitious guitar student. I personally loved the three notes per string modal exercises which played through a metronome slowly bringing up the tempo just has me absolutely blazing up the fretboard picking faster and cleaner than I ever have in my life. I have been playing guitar for 21 years now and this is one of the best if not THE BEST BOOK I have found. Mark also has sections in the book dealing with all the little tricks that you can do on guitar(bending strings,artificial and natural harmonics,hammering,tapping,sliding and hundreds of exercises that the normal person would never think of.) He does not lie when he says that this book will save you thousands of dollars in lessons because that is an absolute fact.

I'm an experienced bass and guitar player with a strong theory background. I bought this book because I'm mostly self-taught and wanted to improve my lead guitar chops, and it was one of the best-reviewed books on the topic available on Amazon. I couldn't have been more disappointed.

Long story short, this book can be described as having two equally awful sections: the first is a list of basic musical concepts and guitar techniques, and the second is a list of common scales in both tablature and standard notation. The explanations are quite poor and the format is not very "musical"... for instance no matter which scale he is describing, he starts it from the lowest note in that scale that can be played on the guitar, not from the tonic. He often introduces music theory concepts such as passing tones or chord substitution but only gives a one or two sentence explanation that would completely baffle a beginner. He gives almost no advice on how to integrate these ideas into different musical contexts. He never even explains how chords are defined or which intervals make up different chords (major, minor, diminished etc). His explanation of modes is hilariously bad. He never spends more than a few sentences on any one technique.

The book is also littered with bad grammar and copy errors that, overall, give it the feel of being about the equivalent of printing off a bunch of "Guitar 101" posts from Usenet. And that's a pretty accurate representation of its true value: if you could print it for free it MIGHT be worth the money. All the useful information in this book is freely available at any decent guitar website, and beginners looking for guidance would probably do better to use an online tutor such as the Justin Guitar videos on YouTube, which are much easier to follow and refreshingly free of lazy, inadequate explanations and misleading omissions. Don't be fooled by all the great reviews on the product page, 95% of it is clearly sourced from the author himself.

I quite literally learned nothing from this book.

This will really help you learn scales, and different techniques to practice scales on. It also helps with coordination and speed or playing.

Great overall for any guitarist.

This book can help you only if you help yourself. If you apply what is written then it should help with your level of ability. To what level is up to you. I find it very comprehensive and worthy of its' price.

This book is by far the best teaching method I have seen in writing. It cannot be beaten for the price. The author does not just give you the scales, he clearly explains all of the theory used in developing the scales and then explains how to use the scales to develope your own leads. I have many scale books and many instructional books and videos. If I had to choose only one, this would be it.