Guitar For Dummies by Mark Phillips, Jon Chappell
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Book Reviews of Guitar For Dummies
Book Review: Good Buy
Summary: 4 Stars
This is a good book for guitar players who have some knowledge of the instrument. Even if it starts with the basics it is a good idea to know the basics before you buy this book. It is user friendly and has a good mix of theory and song playing.Book Review: Looks good
Summary: 4 Stars
This is a Christmas gift so I don't know how the receiver will feel about it; but it looks good to me.Book Review: good
Summary: 4 Stars
Perspnally not the book I wanted to start out with. But is very good either way.Book Review: Pretty Meh.
Summary: 3 Stars
I decided that I'd get an electric guitar for my midlife crisis and picked up this book as a starting point. After about three months, I find that I've actually used it very little.
The good
1) A decent enough introduction to chords, strumming rhythms and a few scales.
2) The section on hardware and setup is fairly good, covering the basics for those who want to learn to setup a guitar by themselves.
3) The sections on different styles cover a wide variety of music
4) They do try to be funny. I'm not sure they succeed, but the attempt to liven up the material is welcome
The bad
1) The CD is godawful. Listen to one of the first songs they teach you to play- "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" Virtually everyone knows this spiritual- very, very slow and soulful. Now listen to the CD version- much too fast with a cheesy synth part on top drowning out most of the guitar. My wife couldn't even identify the tune when I had her listen to it.
2) Doesn't really have a good way to integrate everything. They'll show you the chords, but don't really have exercises designed to speed up chord changes, or hand strength exercises and the like
3) Beginner or not, I'm a bit unsure of some of the hand positions they show in photos. They don't show thumb position on the back and the hand in the photos looks far too collapsed for many chords- compare the correct and lazy techniques shown at http://www.guitarprinciples.com/Guitar_Technique/left%20hand%20shots.htm. This book is much closer to the lazy end.
The biggest reason I haven't bothered much with this book- there is far, far better available for free on the internet. There are multiple sites out there to teach beginners guitar technique, theory and songs, many with detailed videos or MP3s that break down the difficult bits into pieces. Consider going to the websites and then picking up some of the products they've developed, such as Jam Blues or Really Useful Play Along Tracks
Book Review: Decent place to start, but missing some key aspects of learning guitar for beginners
Summary: 3 Stars
Although this book does have some good information and illustrations for a beginning guitar player there are some key things that are missing in the book. I teach hundreds of guitar players online and I can tell you what makes the biggest difference in how students learn is not 'what' they are taught, nor is it even 'how' they are taught. The 2 MOST important aspects of learning guitar are:
1. That you learn in a 'geometric guitar learning approach', not a linear one as suggested by this and most other books for guitar.
2. That students have ways to truly monitor the journey they are on. Learning to play guitar is not about 'learning stuff' it's about how your 'journey' of mastering guitar takes place.
This book does not really address either of those critical points. Because of this, as a guitar teacher I don't recommend it as a way to learn to play guitar. That being said, this book is better than most (but not all) other guitar teaching books available.
~ Tom Hess ~