Customer Reviews

A Modern Approach to Classical Guitar - Composite (Books 1, 2 and 3)(book & 3 CD'S)

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

 

 

The book itself is a good introduction to classical guitar for beginning players like myself. The lessons are easy to follow, with pieces that (for me) are challenging enough to hold my interest without being so difficult as to frustrate me. From a total beginner's perspective, the book alone is worth the price, and deserves a solid 4 to 5 star rating.

The CDs are another story. Having the CDs with the teacher accompaniment pieces available is a nice boon for those like myself who are trying to learn classical guitar on a budget. I'm keeping the lessons to a minimum, so being able to play along with the CDs is a great feature. My major complaint is with the audio quality. I understand and appreciate that this series of books was released long before compact disc technology was available--it used to come with one of those flexible plastic "records" attached to it. If you've ever heard one of those, you know the audio quality is poor. I had hoped that the CD edition would either feature re-recordings of the original pieces, or at least be re-mastered from the original master tapes. Sadly, the CDs are simply a recording of the plastic records themselves, complete with dust pops and all the other audio artifacts associated with a low quality pressing. I don't think they even tried to clean it up digitally (or if they did, it was not done by someone competent).

Needless to say, the audio quality was a huge disappointment for me. Perhaps I've been spoiled with the advent of digital recordings, but even my old vinyl sounds a heck of a lot better than these poor CDs do. They, and not the material in the book, are what bring the rating down for me.

I have collected many classical guitar method books over the years -- Noad, Shearer and Parkening among them -- and Duncan's books always rank among the very best, in my opinion. His advice is well thought-out, well-presented and well-written. The serious student of classical guitar would do well to look at this and other of Duncan's books.

Charles Duncan has compiled a very thorough and interesting method for serious beginner and intermediate level classical guitarists. I addition to the standard literature you would expect, Mr. Duncan has written numerous pieces for this book. His skill for combining jazz, latin and other genres as one progresses along, make this a delightful taste of something totally unexpected in a classical method book. If you like a challenge, but are bored with the same old thing you've played before, check out Duncan's material. You won't be disappointed.

Duncan's method, in my opinion, is the best out of the many books I have examined, and/or purchased. The quality of the CD's is more than acceptable; I was not looking for concert audio quality, they do the job.

I am quite pleased with my progress, his instructions are easy to understand, and follow.

Nice to have all the books together, and the CD is always nice to have. Would be nice to have more practice tracks.

Nice comb binding, large format book

This book is really helping with my reading. The CDs enclosedare very benificial in learning this style of laying classical guitar, and I am trying to put an hour a day into learning from this material. GOOD PURCHASE!

I've been playing guitar for years, but never taken any lessons. It has worked well, but there always was that nagging doubt in the back of my head that it could be done better. Now I decided to try to learn to play guitar properly. This book really is a great help and I'm finally learning to read music and understand more about fingering and technique in general. The only thing to remember is to keep practicing!

I bought this book ten years ago, with a flexible plastic LP album stuck into it, and am buying it again just to get the CD.

You can't go wrong with Mr. Duncan's pedagogy. It's the best method I've found to learn to read music while also learning to play classical guitar. If you can read keyboard music but still haven't been able to make the transition to reading guitar music from the staff, pick up this wonderful set.

The book description says that there are 80 pages. Is this correct? If so it wouod seem that something is not right..