Product Description

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)!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #468 in Books
• Published on: 2002-05-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Plastic Comb
• 144 pages

Customer Reviews

Better than expected
I was reluctant to try learning guitar from a book, as opposed to from an instructor. Music does not come easily to me, but this book has been perfect so far. It's clearly written and I'm having a lot of fun with it.

Great book
After about 5 days of practicing chords with the DVD that came with my acoustic guitar, I've been able to start playing actual songs after just one day with this book. It helps that I already know how to read music, but I do think that this book is really helpful. Combined with other learning by demonstration DVDs, I feel like I'm already able to accomplish more than just learning a few chords.

Not for everyone!
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.