Learn to Play Guitar: A Comprehensive Guitar Guide for Beginners to Intermediate Players

By Gareth Evans

“Covers a wide range topics essential for all guitarists. Plenty of information and solid advice that a player can dip into as needed. There are many examples to practice with the backing tracks. A very useful tool to help you progress with your guitar playing." Hedley Timbs BA(Mus), Grad.Dip. Teaching (New Zealand)

Learn to Play Guitar is comprehensive and clear with over 180 photographic examples, illustrations and purpose made diagrams. This guitar book includes 42 downloadable mp3 tracks of full band demo and backing track with the guitar removed for you to play over. Learn to Play Guitar bridges the gaps, explaining guitar techniques that can be taken for granted by more experienced guitar players.

Melodies - To get you straight into playing music, numbers have been added underneath guitar tablature to assist with the rhythm. Later on, the rhythmical aspect of conventional music notation is covered so you can use it in conjunction with tablature.

Rhythm Guitar - Changing between chords and strumming are presented as separate subjects initially, so that you can develop coordination in each hand independently. They are then brought together starting with basic exercises, getting more advanced until there is a rhythm guitar musical piece to play.

Music Theory - The major scale, minor scale, major and minor pentatonic scales and basic major and minor chord construction are explained in terms of the fret-board and reinforced by musical pieces in various styles to make the learning process practical and enjoyable.

What Else? - Fret-board layout, power chords, barre chords, how to string a guitar, how to practise guitar, palm muting and basic lead guitar techniques.

Please Note: The eBook includes musical pieces so is not suitable for smaller screens.

"We loved the book. The information was well paced and concise enough not to overwhelm. Any beginner would definitely benefit from having this book, and it's a great reminder for those who might have forgotten details or are looking for them.” Nimal De Silva, The Music Garage (Singapore)

"Plenty of detail that goes into posture, hand position, thumb position, etc. The notation and strumming is really good here because it builds up in stages. In a lesson, you can introduce it in this way piece by piece and not overwhelm the student." Michael Hanna, Grade 8 RS.Guitar - Larne Guitar School (N.Ireland)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Intuition Publications
• Release date: May 11, 2012
• ISBN: 9780957650640

Book preview

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1 - The Beginning

The Guitar

Basic Technique…Holding the Guitar and using a Pick

Tuning the Guitar

Relative Tuning

Tablature

Fret-board Diagrams

Sight-reading…a brief introduction

Canon in A

Jingle Bells

Basic Blues

Chapter 1 Questions

Chapter 2 - Fundamentals

Fret-board Layout

The Major Scale

Calm Beach

Notes in the Major Scale

Fretting Hand Technique

Alternate Picking

Major Scale Shape

Summer

The Natural Minor Scale

Nice

Chapter 2 Questions

Chapter 3 - Chords

Major Triads

Major Triad Based Chords

Minor Triads

Strumming Technique

Changing Between Chords

A minor to C Major

C Major to E minor, then to A minor

E minor to G Major

D Major to A Major

D Major to E Major

E minor to D Major

Strumming

Over the Hills and Far Away

Chapter 3 Questions

Chapter 4 - Playing by Shapes

Fretting Exercise

Minimising Movement

Transposing by the Root Note

From low E string

From A string

From D string

From G string

Power Chords

Route 5

Pentatonic Scales

The Major Pentatonic

Mosey on Down

The Minor Pentatonic

Headstrong

Chapter 4 Questions

Chapter 5 - Reading Rhythm

Sight-reading

How to Keep Time (When reading rhythm from the staff)

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

Frere Jacques

Piece 1 - Merry Dance

Dotted Notes

Greensleeves

Piece 2 - Pirates Jig

Tied Notes

Amazing Grace

Piece 3 - Memories

General Sample Pieces

Sight Strumming

Bayou Noir

Florida Blues

Working out Strumming Patterns by Ear

Chapter 5 Questions

Chapter 6 - Further Techniques

Movable Barre Chords

More Power Chords

The Bikers Entered the Room

Heavy D

Palm Muting

Travelling Man

Boogie Boy

Lead Playing Techniques

Hammer-ons and Pull-offs

String Bends

Sliding

B Minor Blues

Improvising

Hints for Improvising

Chapter 6 Questions

Chapter 7 - Tips

How to Practise

Stretching Exercises

How to String a Guitar

Electric Guitar

Acoustic Guitar

Classical Guitar

Answers

Chapter 1 - The Beginning

Chapter 2 - Fundamentals

Chapter 3 - Chords

Chapter 4 - Playing by Shapes

Chapter 5 - Reading Rhythm

Chapter 6 - Further Techniques

Thank you for buying this Book

eBooks & Books Also Available

ISBN 978-0-9576506-4-0

Written by Gareth Evans

Photography, Diagrams and Cover design by Gareth Evans

Additional Illustrations by Chris Evans

Copyright © 2012 by Intuition Publications

www.guitar-book.com

International Copyright Secured. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Audio Tracks

These can be downloaded for free from this link at the bottom of the eBook

Introduction

This book is designed for beginners to intermediate players. It explains in a simple way the fundamentals of areas such as technique, theory, and fret-board layout, some of which you are better off knowing now, rather than after a few months, or even years of playing.

Depending on your experience some of the subjects, particularly earlier on, may already be familiar although there may be something you have missed and whatever your strengths are there might be other areas to be brought up to speed. This book looks at technique in some depth.

Music theory is reinforced by musical pieces in various styles, which should make the learning process more practical and enjoyable. The pieces are designed for beginners but can be adapted by more experienced players by making their own melodies and / or improvising using the scales.

Each audio track has two versions, a demo track to show how the piece should sound, followed by a backing track where the guitar has been removed for you to play over.

Stretching is particularly important in the earlier stages as the hands are more prone to injury and annoying pains before they have got used to playing. At the back of the book are some stretching exercises and tips on how to practise. You don’t need to wait until you have finished the book to read that section as the advice can be useful from the beginning.

Some parts of the book refer to and are linked to other parts, to return to your previous location just use the back button on your eReader.

Chapter 1 - The Beginning

The Guitar

* The Pickup selector switch is to choose which pickups to use. Ranging from a sharp heavy sound with the switch back for the pickup near the bridge, to a softer mellow jazzy sound with the switch set forward for the pickup near the fret-board. * The Tone knob controls the volume proportion between the high and low frequencies, in other words it’s the treble and bass.

Basic Technique…Holding the Guitar and using a Pick

When sitting to play the guitar you should be upright with the guitar upright on your lap and its neck tilted upward slightly. It can help to have the guitar as balanced on the lap as you can, as this leaves the hands free to play it rather than have to hold it upright too.

With an acoustic guitar you can hold the body of the guitar under your strumming arm. Using a music stand at eye level for reading can make it easier to maintain good posture and is more comfortable than crouching over your guitar to read music off a table or desk. Pegs can be used to hold pages open.

Sometimes when standing up to play, the guitar is slung low, usually for style. For the best position to play in however, it’s better not to have the guitar slung too low otherwise it becomes difficult for your fretting hand to reach around the neck. Wearing a strap while sitting can also give extra stability and comfort.

The pick should be held between the thumb and the index finger. The parts in contact with the pick should be the sole / tip area of the thumb and the side of the sole of the index finger. You could put your hand out in front of you and hold the pick as shown in the photo below. There only needs to be a small bit of pick sticking out from your grip. Too far out and we don’t have as much control causing it to flap about within our grip as we pluck the strings.

When writing we hold the pen nearer the tip while resting the side of our hand on the paper, this way we can get control over the pen and write neatly. If we were to hold the pen further away from the tip without resting our

Reviews for Learn to Play Guitar

[cocokio ser · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

POOR BOOK it's not so easy to understand if this basic course address u to classical, modern, jazz or blues musicabsolutely chaotic and not clear