Customer Reviews

Hal Leonard Guitar Method Book 1: Book/CD Pack

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

As a geezer let me tell you that i HAVE learned to play
my new Les Paul electric guitar using this series of
lesson books....books 1 through 3 & the BLUES book as well.

Book 1, will get you actually reading sheet music and
playing it. Mission accomplished.

I wish I would have learned guitar about 5 or 6 decades ago.
It is fun!

I have just finished the second book and it was not before I started using some online methods that I figured out how bad this book is in teaching you the chords! The book introduces the chords incrementally in between other lessons but it fails to describe the process of improving your chord changes and how proficient you need to be before moving on to the next lessons. I wouldn't use this method if I was going to start again.

As a secondary music educator, I believe this book is a GREAT book for people who want to learn how to play guitar (especially for those who have no musical training at all). Pedagogically the method is logical, simple, well paced, and clear. Each string is introduced one at a time and new exercises effectively combine and utilize skills previous taught. While many method books throw tons of initially irrelevant information at you from the start, this book only introduces and teaches what is necessary to properly play the material. TAB is introduced later in the series, but the first book requires students to learn traditional notation (i.e. note and rhythm reading).

Some previous reviewers call the exercises in this book "old" or "outdated," but majority of the material are familiar folk songs. Folk songs are generally... old. Ode to Joy, Greensleeves, Yankee Doodle, Star Spangled Banner, etc., are the types of tunes you will find in this book.

For those of you who wish to supplement your studies with some "pop" music, Hal Leonard publishes a book entitled "Easy Pop Melodies" for guitar which has some fairly satisfying material.

As with any student/method book combination, this book may not be right for some students who might require a different method of instruction, but I believe this book is wonderful for most beginning students.

While this first book is an excellent book for absolute beginners who are just getting into guitar, there is a complete edition for a price of 15 dollars that has all 3 books and CDs.

I use this at the store where I teach guitar and the book is very good for beginning students. However, it gets boring once the student starts getting a firm grasp ( about 1/4 of the way through the book). That is the point where I only use the book to keep the student's mind fresh on sight reading and I move on to other things. Probably not a good book if you want to teach yourself. Good for an instructor to use to guide a student though.

I have looked at numerous beginner guitar books, and I currently have about six others that I've checked out from the library, but I keep coming back to this one. I love that there is no TAB in this book. To me, TAB feels like cheating. You have to learn how to read TAB and then you get used to it, and then you feel like you need it. But even books with TAB usually also have the standard music notation written out above to clarify the rhythm, etc. So why not just use the standard notation in the first place instead of learning two systems? And this book, more than any other, taught me how to read music. It's simple. You learn a few notes on one string, and then you practice a few songs that use those notes. Then you move to the next string. There are no shortcuts! If you just steadily work at it, you get to the point fairly quickly where you can look at a note and automatically play it on the right string on the guitar. Yes, the music is basic, and I suppose some of it is boring (I found myself wanting to skip a few like Yankee Doodle), but I actually loved most of the tunes (especially the folk songs). It's helpful to have some idea what a song should sound like so you know if you're on the right track.
To me, this is a good book to get if you're willing to put in the time and actually learn to read music. You learn chords too as you go along. But the chords aren't the focus, and I actually liked that. It's easy to get frustrated with learning guitar because a lot of people and books will tell you that all you need to learn is a few chords and then you'll be playing songs in no time. But they don't tell you how hard learning chords, getting them to sound right, switching between them in time, and singing along will be. This book actually gets you playing melodies quickly, and the chords come in time as your fingers toughen up.

Great book, perfect for a beginner learning both guitar and to read music, clear, concise easy to follow, great graphics

I really like this product. I will continue with the following book. I think people should try it. It is simple to follow and very efficient.

Ordered this book on the recomendation of my instructer. I was a little leary because it was used. I was pleasantly surprised. The book was in great condition as well as an excellent price. Will order from this co. again for sure.

I received a guitar for Christmas and, considering I have no prior experience with playing, immediately set out to find an instruction book. This one was recommended in the introduction DVD that came with my guitar and I absolutely love it. The CD that comes with it gives you such a sense of accomplishment when you are able to play along with it. The book does a great job of introducing things slowly, but not so slow that you don't start to feel successful. I highly recommend this for any beginner.