Customer Reviews

Total Guitar: The Complete Guide to Playing, Recording and Perfoming Every Guitar Style with over 1000 Chords

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

 

 

I have been playing guitar for more than twenty years and have used many, many reference sources. This one is by far the least accurate. While the intentions of the book are good, it's goal of providing the most comprehensive set of information about guitars and how to play them in one volume must be what lead to all the errors in it.

One huge mistake that was made in the production of Total Guitar was the choice of graphics used for the chord and fretboard diagrams. A good choice would have been to select six lines only to represent the strings, however, they chose to use eight lines. The two extra lines are meant to indicate the edges of the fretboard, but they are identical in width as the string lines, and look exactly like two extra strings. This is EXTREMELY confusing, especially since the industry standard is six lines.

This must have also confused the folks who put together some of the chords, for example: On top of page 109, under "Country Chords" the author intended to show an A Major chord, but the notes shown on the fretboard are one string too low (resulting in an E Major augmented fourth, not an A Major). The A Major is, however, written correctly on the staff/tab next to it.

Not only is that chord off, but I just noticed that the E Major chord shown on page 108 is off by a string as well! My guess is that this is a result of the poor choice in using too many lines on the diagram.

While there is certain information that is good, and there is a good amount of theory available in the book. I think I'll probably toss mine in a recycling because it does nothing more than frustrate me and I wouldn't burden anyone else with this mess. As a guitar teacher, one of the strongest rules I stress to my students is to "Learn it right the first time." This way they don't have to un-learn mistakes. This book teaches mistakes. The typos and numerous errors are such that I have no more trust in them to provide proper information.

I DO NOT recommend Total Guitar at all. Beginners will be mislead and any other players will simply be frustrated. It's not worth the discount price, and not even worth it if someone gave it to you.

There are far better books on guitar playing, but my best recommendation is to find a competent teacher with lots of experience who can show you by example.

Good luck!!

I borrowed this book from a friend and was really glad I didn't buy it. The book aims to be the total book on guitar but unfortunately it doesn't cover anything well. For a beginner it's very weak. It doesn't describe how to position the fingers very well, it devotes two pages to how to play chords, that's it! It tries to cover things like improvising and recording but it just skims the surface. I think a beginner would be much better off with a good beginner book, such as Guitar for Dummies. Then if you need to record, improvise, etc. search out books specific on the topic you want. These "all-in-one" books rarely work and this book is no exception.

PS: The fret diagrams are extremely confusing as another reader pointed out. They use 8 lines and I constantly look and think I'm looking at the 6th string when in fact I'm looking at one of the extra lines. The fact that the author did this tells me just how clueless he is! Any beginner that proof'd this book would have caught this as it is so confusing!!

I'm not really a beginner guitarist, but i wanted to learn more on guitar theory which is why i got this book. I already knew a pretty decent amount though but i wanted to learn theory relating to the guitar. This book can be VERY confusing and there are even typos, for eg. they have the A harmonic minor with an A# on the octave in the scale finder. Or they tell you that the difference between the Harmonic Minor and the Natural minor is that you raise the 6th note in a Harmonic Minor a half step when you're really raising the 7th. This can cause people to get reallllly frustrated and confused and have to seek different sources for an explanation on these contradictions. Also, the way they explain a lot of stuff is so rediculously difficult i almost think theyre TRYING to confuse me. But otherwise if you can figure these things out yourself it's a great book because it covers so much.

I strongly agree with the comments here about the two extra lines on the chord diagrams - very confusing. And the typos are very annoying. It's frustrating to try a chord with fingering that's physically impossible to achieve. Is it me? Is it this guitar tutor expert? The author should have checked and rechecked the proof before going to print.

Good effort otherwise.

This book contains all I'll ever want to know about playing a guitar and much much more. For a beginning guitar student it's a bit overwhelming, but for the serious experienced guitar player who's ready to move on to a new level of playing, it's like acquiring a set of "guitar encyclopedias". Well worth the money.

I was given this book as a gift near the time I started playing 8 years ago. It is not as useful as it wants to be for beginners, and more advanced players will likely scoff at it. It is littered with typos and even errors, such as in some of the chord examples. The instruction it provides tends to be brief and not descriptive enough for a beginner. For example, it describes how to execute a "pull-off" in a single short four-bullet example, but says nothing about pulling off your finger in such a way as to effectively pick the string with your fretboard hand. When I was a beginner I recall being confused about why my pull-off executed in this way was so quiet until I read alternative articles on this technique.
For a beginner, this book is also not structured well and serves to be confusing.
I recommend other sources for beginning guitar, particularly those that are organized more as a course. As a guitar encyclopedia, it is okay: if you use the chord diagrams make sure you know how to verify their correctness; articles tend to be too vague though, and I would recommend the internet even over this book.

Although this book has some minor flaws, it is a great reference for theory applied to guitar. The section on chords and scales is phenomenal. The chord diagrams can be a little confusing, however all notes are labeled and confusion can be avoided with a little attention. I would recommend this book for any serious guitarist.

This is a really excellent book, one that I highly recommend. It contains a little history of stringed instruments, mostly oriented towards guitar, and electric more than acoustic. Inside is complete coverage of all standard notes, chord theory, chord dictionary, and altered tunings and a few 'weird' ways of playing. Different genres are covered, including blues, flamenco, classical and (of course) rock. Very interesting profiles of a number of artists, including their styles of play and guitar types (including brand names). At the end is a section on recording, producing, publishing, marketing and selling including info that is up to date with what's new on the internet. There are a few typos, mostly in the latter chapters, but a very worthwhile book and quite complete for all my purposes.

I've seen this book before, and I received one in excellent condition. I live in Hawaii, so it took over a month to get, but I'm very satisfied. Great condition for a used book, and hardback too, which I wasn't expecting. Thumbs up!

Great book for the beginer. From the history of the instrument to recording and marketing your music this book has it all. Great photos too.