Guitar All In One For Dummies - 665 Pages Paperback - 1 Audio CD Disk
Sometimes when you start out playing guitar, you're interested in Rock music, and
then, the more you learn about music and playing the guitar, you might find yourself interested in Blues music a year or 2 down the road.
Things don't always go as we plan in life, and sometimes we find that learning something new about a subject leads us in a different direction than we had planned. After all, if you don't know you can do something, you won't choose to do it. As you study music, and appreciate more and more aspects of it, you might even come to like a little Classical music here and there. You just never know for sure where your musical journey might take you. So, what's the point here? Well, the point is that this book, Guitar All In One, is a great opportunity to get your hands on an incredible amount of guitar information for a very small price. And the chances are really good that you will find out something about music and guitar playing and songwriting that you didn't realize before, and this could influence what decisions you make and what you do with music. This book is loaded with a wide, wide variety of information related to guitar playing and music making. Electric guitar, acoustic guitar, Rock music, Blues music, song playing, song writing, etc. There's a vast array of musical information available to you here that could take you down a musical road you hadn't even considered before.
8 Mini Books In 1
There actually are 8 different mini books combined into this guitar book. Here is a list of the titles you will receive:
- Guitar For Dummies
- Rock Guitar For Dummies
- Blues Guitar For Dummies
- Classical Guitar For Dummies
- Guitar Exercises For Dummies
- Songwriting For Dummies
- Music Composition For Dummies
- Music Theory For Dummies
This is a very large book, and as a way of talking about and describing it, each of the mini books that it contains will be addressed in turn.
Book I - Guitar 101
This book really starts at the beginning with the very basics of guitar, and assumes no previous knowledge. You will learn about the names and locations of the important parts of the guitar. Photographs are labeled and the names of the parts are defined in a glossary. How the frets work to make the different semitones and notes. How to tune your guitar using several different methods. Basic guitar skills like how to hold the guitar and how to fret the notes and strum the strings. Chord diagrams and tablature are explained here. How to go shopping for a guitar. Some tips and pointers about what you should look for in a guitar. They talk about different models and styles of guitars and how the different types of guitars are used for different musical genres. They help you match the guitar you should get according to the type of music (rock, blues, country) that you like to play. They talk a little about the way guitars are made, the materials used in guitar construction, and the options with the hardware. Guitar maintenance, including when and how to change the strings. How to read music notation and tablature. What all the different kinds of notes mean. That's basically what you get with book number 1, guitar 101.
Book II - Sounds and techniques
A large part of this book is devoted to playing chords on the guitar. They begin with major and minor chords. They introduce the concept of chord families, where an A chord is family with the D and E chords. The chords of a I IV V progression. They show you some rhythm patters for strumming the chords. And they introduce the chords from a lot of other families like C, D, and G. They talk about how you are able to play a large quantity of songs by using just 3 chords on the guitar. They coach you on how to accomplish this. They add in the playing of minor chords in some of your progressions, and some songs you can play with them. A cool section of the book is where they show you how easy it is to play familiar oldies songs that you already know. They explain how you can play them in any key you're comfortable with using the chord families and they give you tips on how many strums per chord you will want to use with your right hand. This is a great way to start having a lot of fun with the guitar very early on, and it's very encouraging, and very nice. Next up, you work with 7th chords and learn some new songs that use them. More teaching on chords included the difference between open chords, barre chords, power chords, etc. Right hand rhythm techniques, syncopation are talked about. How to mix up playing single notes and strumming the chords. Also, they cover something about the difference between playing straight eighth notes and using a shuffle feel in your playing, and they give examples of songs that use each to help you learn it.
Book III - Rock Guitar
Book 3 is devoted to guitar playing for Rock n Roll. In this book you'll find out about distortion and sustain, and how the combination of the guitar, the amp, and the effects will produce the desired sound for rock guitar. This book gets into more detail about electric guitar amps. Their parts and features. How to set your amp to get the best sound out of it. Lead guitar versus rhythm playing. Soloing with the pentatonic scale. Improvising and lead guitar playing. All about riffs, and how to discover your own personal style of playing the guitar. Playing everything up and down the neck. Using movable chords and scales shapes. A close look at the styles of several Rock Guitar Legends. How they play, what their secret to great sound is.
Book IV - Blues Guitar
Next comes a mini book about Blues guitar. After a little history of Blues guitar and how it began with acoustic guitars and later moved to electric guitars they start by teaching you about strumming rhythm for blues. Hybrid playing where you are mixing single notes with the strumming of chords. The shuffle groove. Fingerstyle Blues. Blues progressions, the 12 bar blues, and the 8 bar blues. Different time signatures that are commonly found in blues songs. Blues riffs, including single note riffs and the double stops. Learn about the distinctions between all the different blues genres including Delta Blues, Piedmont Blues, Electric Blues, Chicago Blues, Texas Blues, etc. They also have a section where they talk about some famous Blues guitar players.
Book V - Classical Guitar
History of classical guitar. How the classical guitars are different from other types of guitars. How to hold the classical guitar. The left hand and right hand techniques used in playing this type of guitar.
Classical composers and some songs you can learn to play for classical guitar.
Book VI - Exercises
This is a book of guitar exercises, to be used for practicing and learning new ways of playing. Major and minor scale patterns. Chords, chord groups, etc.
Book VII - Songwriting
This is a book about writing your own songs. I can't imagine there are too many things more satisfying than performing a song you wrote yourself in front of a large group of appreciative listeners. They talk about all the different ways song parts can be ordered to produce a finished song. All the details you need to know to get started writing your very own songs.
Book VII - Appendixes
The last mini book in the series is simply the appendixes. This includes a huge guitar chord chart section that gives you the chord charts for most any chord you'll be likely to need.
A companion web site has additional articles, videos, and photos to help you learn more about guitar playing and song writing.
