Binding: Plastic Comb
Dewey Decimal Number: 787
EAN: 9780634047015
ISBN: 0634047019
Label: Hal Leonard Corporation
Manufacturer: Hal Leonard Corporation
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 144
Publication Date: 2002-05-01
Publisher: Hal Leonard Corporation
Studio: Hal Leonard Corporation

The Hal Leonard Guitar Method is designed for anyone just learning to play acoustic or electric guitar. It is based on years of teaching guitar students of all ages, and reflects some of the best teaching ideas from around the world. This super-convenient Complete Edition features the new and improved method books 1, 2 and 3 spiral-bound together, available as a book only (00699040) or book with three CDs (00697342)!

Customer Rating:
Summary: Not for everyone!
Comment: I bought this book based on the overwhelming positive reviews here at Amazon, and was left quite disappointed. The book is ultra-simplistic, and each section has a small bit of information followed by a large chunk of sheet music. If one were browsing in a music store, and picked up this book and casually flipped through it, it would come across primarily as book of sheet music.

The book is heavily focused on learning to read actual music (staffs, notes, clefs, etc), and tablature is almost an afterthought.

As best I can tell, the accompanying CD's are simply the music bits played, with absolutely no verbal instruction.

This book may be fine for many (and apparently is) but it is definitely not the best way to learn guitar for everyone. I downgraded it to 3 stars, not because "it's just not for me", but because I actually find the instructional material to be quite sparse. A large chunk of the print is going to be sheet music, which you can find online for free anyway.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Not the Best... But Good
Comment: This is not the best book to learn notes. It is funner then some books though, because its not just lines of notes. It teaches chords and alternate fingerings for some. Book one has tuning, playing position, musical symbols, etc. Book two goes deeper with power chords, fingerstyle, pentatonic scales, for someone who more experience with a guitar. Finally in the third book is more on different scales, barre chords, Travis picking, information on gear, and other information for advanced guitar. All three books are bound together in one edition. The spiral binding seems to be made of good quality plastic and is probably not likely to break. The CDs contain audio accompaniments and are not just guitar examples. I would not recommend you use the book by its self to learn notes, a good accompanying book to use with it is Aaron Shearer's Classic Guitar Technique Volume One.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Unbelievable guidance
Comment: I always admire guitar sound and style. I loved to learn playing guitar, but I never succeeded. To me, reading music nodes was one of the hardest, painful, and frustrating task. Plus, I didn't have any sense of music, the most important essential for a guitarist and other instruments player as well.
I tried a few self-taught books before but failed to catch up and ended up giving up as I went just over a few pages of them; they did not work out as I was a music dummy. However, in the bottom of my heart, I have always dreamed of being able to play guitar. And thing changed when I inadvertently found this book when I browsed Amazon website. Learning that it was a good book through reviews and rates, I decided to give it a try, so I bought it.
When I open the very first pages, I immediately knew that this book was for me. The way the author goes from string to string, node to node on each string is extremely helpful. It helps me build up my ability of reading music without discouraging me. I can now play the first 3 string as I read the music staff after a few weeks, the thing I never dreamed of before. I hope, as much as I go, I am able to develop my sense of music as well as my reading ability. Many of my friend can play chords background for someone to sing. In other words, they can sense the music and play the correct chords. For me, that is amazing enough to inspire me.
In brief, this is an amazing guidance for self-taught guitarists, especial music dummies like me. I highly recommend it to everybody who loves to learn playing guitar. Thank you so much Hal Leonard.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Really good book for price!
Comment: I got this book set about 3-4 months ago. I've been trying to play the guitar for over a year now. I don't want to play for lessons yet but I know I'm going to have to soon to make sure I go to the next level. Until then though, these are some pretty good books. I'm about finished with the first CD/book and trying to go onto the next. It starts off slow and gets you up to speed quickly. The first book is entirely in normal music notation, and it teaches you how to read it and slowly adds an additional string until you're playing all 6 strings but just the top 4 frets after which is switches to fret/music and chord sheet music. I bought some song books before but they were more for people who knew what they were doing...not for me...at least not yet. I also tried a PC program where you plug your guitar into it and play with the PC and it grades you. That went ok but it just haves you play random riffs over and over and it doesn't teach you the reason why you're playing what you are nor was it any fun since I wasn't really playing any song, even it was a simple song.

This book seems to teach you a little more than that but I'll still end up getting lessons at some point to have someone show me one on one some different styles and how I can progress further. These 3 books/cds should give me a really good head start though. Highly recommended for the $20 it costs.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Good, but.....
Comment: This book is reasonably priced and good for beginners in general. The only thing I found to be lacking is the short number of songs which go with each "lesson plan". It seems that by page 25, you are expected to play at an intermediate/pro level. To me, I would have preferred that the author included several more practice songs at each level of progression. Also, with the CD they have songs at a slow pace, and then a fast pace. Well, the slow version is easy to learn to play along with, but then the fast versions seem almost impossible to keep up with. Again, this book is very good and I recommend it. The only way to have made it better would to have been to include more practice songs at each level of progression. Best of luck, and remember this: learning to play the guitar is very difficult and requires time and patience. If you think you will play like Jimi Hendrix in 2 weeks, then think again and just keep playing those stupid video games.

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