Teach Yourself Guitar - 129 Pages Paperback - 1 Audio CD
Are you a good self-learner? This is a book and CD set
that's designed to teach you guitar and allow you to learn guitar on your own, with regular practice and effort. This book is for guitar players interested in learning to
play Classical Guitar. Classical music played on a classical acoustic, six string guitar. The book begins by explaining and identifying the different parts of the guitar. Then goes on to give tips and pointers to prepare you to purchase a classical guitar. Next, the author goes through teaching you the names of the strings, where those notes appear on the keyboard, then how to tune your guitar, using a tuning fork or other means. This is followed by some introduction instruction on scales, chords, and arpeggios. For simplicity, they start off with the musical key that has no sharps or flats, the key of C. Then follows a chapter on the right hand. The technique used to play classical guitar. How to keep your fingernails. How long to keep them. How the fingers are numbered when they're referred to in musical notation. There's a chapter on the subject of apoyando. And another one dealing with tirando. The two basic right-hand movements in classical guitar playing.
The instruction continues by introducing you to some musical theory. Reading music, reading the notes, the musical staff, sharps, flats, naturals, accidentals, etc. Then the author shifts to topics dealing with the left hand. The frets, finding the notes you want to play on the guitar neck, how the left hand fingers are numbered in the music, etc. Combining the left and right hands to make them work together. To play scales. To make music. To play chords. The first musical piece is introduced here.
The Merits Of Classical Guitar:
There's something to be said for learning to play classical guitar. They have the distinction of playing along with renowned orchestras, and playing classical guitar opens up hundreds of years of some of the best music ever written. Many well known pieces of music by masters such as Brahms, Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, etc have been arranged to be played on classical guitar. So knowing classical guitar has its advantages, even if you also enjoy playing Rock, Blues, or Jazz on a solid body electric guitar. Many a famous and popular guitar player has started out in the classical music realm.
Next up, the subject of musical rhythm gets introduced. Note values, time signatures. What do all the different note and rest symbols look like. Tied notes, dotted notes, how to count out the tempo of a piece of music. Other chapters cover barre chords, making music sound better with glissando, vibrato, tone color, major and minor keys, chords, musical shorthand. There are chapters on advanced techniques for each of the left and right hands. There's also a chapter on practicing. It teaches you how to focus on what you need to learn when you practice. This chapter can teach you valuable lessons about practicing that will save you many hours of wasted time down the road.
About the CD. The audio CD follow along with the chapters of the book. Being able to hear the points and information they teach on a guitar is a definite plus. It makes the content a lot easier to understand and enjoy. A lot of the topics of the book are covered on the CD. The CD has a lot of examples of guitar playing illustrating what is taught in the book. The CD gives you the book page number for easy reference.
The style of this book is it's written for a beginner who wants to teach themselves how to play guitar. There's a complete introduction to music and classical guitar. You don't get overwhelmed with too much, too soon. This can be intimidating and get discouraging. Rather, you get easily digestible chapters of essential lessons of music and guitar. Using this book will get you playing the guitar, and you'll have enough material to keep you learning for a long time. A long enough time to answer for yourself the question of if you like it enough to go further in your studies. The author anticipates that you will indeed want to go to the next level of your study of guitar. He encourages you to at least experience taking lessons for a while. And there's also a list of Internet web sites about guitars.
