Customer Reviews

Total Rock Guitar: A Complete Guide to Learning Rock Guitar

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I purchased this book after trying out a few lessons in "Speed Mechanics for Lead Guitar", and I'm a very satisfied customer! I find Troy Stetina's teaching style to be very informative and effective. His lessons are comprehensive, challenging, and not to mention fun! I could see improvement in my playing ability very quickly. Stetina's explanations are easy to follow and engaging; his personality and passion is evident in his writing.
Structure-wise, this book is divided up into lessons, with each culminating in a song incorporating skills taught in that particular lesson and building on those taught in previous lessons. Each lesson focuses on a specific musical genre, such as punk, jazz, blues, metal, etc. A nice surprise is that I now have a new appreciation of these genres. Being primarily an alt/emo rock fan, I previously wouldn't have given much thought to blues, but now that I know a few concepts behind it, I have a newfound interest in it.
This is a great book to learn various styles of rock, full of technical exercises and some music theory. I wouldn't say this is an appropriate beginners book to learn music theory from though; there are some concepts explained that might be confusing if you don't know the basics. But if you're interested in learning chords and trying your hand at some soloing (and just want to play a song!) I definitely recommend this book, Total Rock Guitar, and other books by Troy Stetina.

Ive Been playing for almost a year and recently just got out of that dreaded beginner stage and found myself unsure on what direction i want to persue, Troy's book is incredibly comprehensive in its various rock styles. I found his lessons to be very fun and fulfulling, at the end of eah lesson i felt that i learned a whole 'nother style of rock guitar. This book is perfect for any player who is looking to expand from basic notes to a full catalog of musical options. Worth every penny!

This book contains the basics of rock's power chords and the blues scale and progressions. It also has several songs printed in the book and a cd with the songs recorded with full accompanient also the channels are split up in a way that if you just want to hear the drums and bass turn the balance one way if you just want to hear the guitar turn it the other way. The info on the power chords and rock progressions and soloing is worth the price alone.

I've tried teaching with different methods, but this one is the most comprehensive and interesting. While it introduces the student to different styles of rock, it differs from many courses that start with a bluesier approach. Strong rhythm with power chords, rhythm riffs, and arpeggios are taught early. Lead playing is gradually worked in and not overemphasized (it isn't under-emphasized, for that matter). All in all, this is one heckuva balanced and entertaining course.

Total Rock Guitar: Great book, offering a nice overview of a variety of rock styles. The songs are great and follow a nice progression in difficulty. My only suggestion is that I would have preferred that the whole solos would have been included at a slower tempo, not only the main licks. I also feel that the theory discussions before the songs are to brief, and I feel that Troy Stetina assumes that you have some understanding of music theory and many music concepts are presume to be understood. For example, in the first lesson a Fourth is define as "the music interval or distance, of four scales steps", so you better know already about music intervals within a scale. In other words, if a have not read "Music Principles for the Skeptical Guitarist" by Bruce Emery before buying Total Rock Guitar I would have been somewhat lost in various lessons. However, this is the best rock guitar book I have ever used, and you will be playing great rhythm parts and solos in just a few lessons. I highly recommended this book.

I think this is a revolutionary approach to guitar teaching that is really fun and keeps you coming back to practice. The appeal is probably in the songs - they rock! There are NO exercises that you play along to, just the original music. The songs are so good, I'm tempted to pop them on my ipod to rock withOUT playing along on my guitar.

The book also does a great job of gradually increasing difficulty from song to song. Many have said that this book is for intermediate players, but it only starts out that way (don't buy this book if you are a beginner). The last few songs are rather difficult, and I would NOT call someone who could play them flawlessly an "intermediate guitar player". They're pretty tough.

By far, the most satisfying result of going through this course was accumulating many different guitar distortion/effect patches to match the particular genres in the book. Stetina gives good advice for building awesome guitar sounds, which is all too rare in instructional books.

If you want to get better at rockin' then this is probably one of the best buys you can make.

I bought this book as a beginner - which it is clearly not for. You have to have some knowledge of guitar to be able to even use the first pages of this book.

I purchased this book about two years ago about the same time I started lessons. This book is not for beginners. You don't start out playing Steve Vai or John Petrucci tunes, but you do need to have at least a rudimentary understanding of basic guitar chords and an understanding of basic fundamentals such as power chords, palm muting, hammer-ons, pull-offs and bends. The author cleverly throws in some different techniques before each tune and then lets the player use what they have learned in the next tune.
Almost all of the tunes are really good and are not that out of place just to stick in your cd player with other music. Eight five percent of the riffs are hard rock with a few bordering on some pretty intense heavy metal.
I still enjoy playing these riffs along with my regular practice routine just to throw in different things. Even though I consider myself a intermediate player now, I still haven't mastered all the songs in this book.
Before you buy this book you will need an amp that can put out some distortion or a distortion pedal. I would also recommend a guitar with humbuckers as opposed to single coils to get the proper tone for playing these songs.

This book was great for me to learn different types of music and timing. I really wouldn't recommend it to anyone above the intermediate level. It is great for beginners- as it helped me develop a few basic songs from the licks I learned.

Overall, its targeted for those who are new to the guitar. There are some complex solos, but that is in the very back. Don't waste your money if you're looking for heavy rock licks, either. All the songs I learned to play were fairly mellow.

Total Rock Guitar falls a little bit short regarding the promise of the subtitle to be "A Complete Guide to Learning Rock Guitar." However, if you already know the basics and have some practice, there are a lot of little treasures hidden on the 96 pages ... and even more treasures on the included CD. The tracks are made to learn from in the beginning and to use as your personal "sparring garage band" to jam with later on. In a nutshell, a good book for a guitar player who knows his chords and scales - and maybe some first riffs and licks - and now wants to know what really to do with that knowledge in a rockin' enviroment.