Beginner's Guitar Lessons: The Essential Guide (With Audio) Kindle Edition

You’ve looked at this book, and you’re reading this review because you want to start learning the guitar, or you’ve already put your hand to it but You Tube isn’t giving you the info’ you need in a way that flows into a sensible learning progression; yes?Me too.You’ve been reading the Amazon reviews of book after book with things like ‘Beginners Guide’ or ‘10 Easy Steps’ in the title, and so many of them have those worrying few comments like, “This is really too advanced for a beginner”, or, “I suppose some people have different ideas of what a beginner is”, and you’re just not confident about spending your cash despite the other four glowing reviews.I did that; window shopped for hours.In the end I picked, ‘Beginner’s Guitar Lessons: The Essential Guide’, by Joseph Alexander. The reviews read about right, it didn’t promise that I’d be playing like Yngwie Malmsteen in just ten days (snake oil’s still oily, no matter how pretty the bottle). And too, perhaps I just got sick of searching, but I was given confidence by the number of positive comments on Joseph Alexanders books, and the range of well reviewed books focussing on modern guitar that Mr Alexander had published. I also noticed that the very few negative comments weren’t related to the course content.What a spot of luck. The book is a gem; easy to read, easy to follow with exercises that are genuinely at a beginner level and not discouragingly difficult. More importantly, the true basics are covered: How to hold your instrument; how to hold a pick, how to strum, how to place your fingers on the fretboard and where should your thumb go? All covered quickly and concisely in amongst the other lessons so you can get on with learning to play.I went from having to ask the shop assistant to audition an electric guitar for me because I didn’t know how to get it to make a sound that wasn’t discordant, to being able to put my fingers to about a dozen or so chords without needing to see a chord chart, knowing which chords they actually are, being able to strum several basic rhythmic patterns by seeing the standard notation, getting the basics of reading tablature and first steps towards hybrid picking, all in about 4 weeks at less than an hour a day.Sure, I fumble at chord changes still, but that’ll come with time and practice. I know this because I’m already seeing the improvements in my ability. My rhythm has a way to go before I make it up to just ordinary; I’m always pulling ahead of the metronome. Again, time and practice, but ‘Beginner’s Guitar Lessons: The Essential Guide’ has given me the knowledge to get this far and the tools to practice with.Along with the book you also get to download a set of audio examples off Mr Alexander’s web site. These small downloads are short and simple, and have real value: I was practicing a strumming pattern on a D major chord the other day, and I thought to myself, “damn, that sounds ordinary; this can’t be right”, a quick play through of the example and, “whoa, that sounds just like when I do it; I must be getting it right. I guess that’s why there aren’t many pop tunes based solely on quarter note D major strums”. It gives a way to check yourself, it gives confidence and somewhere to go if you just need to hear an exercise to pick up what supposed to be happening.You’ll notice that there’s no mention here of picking away learning the notes on each string at the first three or five frets like those particularly dull books the guitar shop guys have in the rack. You know the ones; four weeks later and you can limp through a single string version of Mary Had a Little Lamb because you know how it’s supposed to go, not because you can actually sight read the standard notation you’re staring at while you do it. The ones that come with a free chord chart, but don’t actually progress to making a chord at any time before the book runs out.They sold me one too. I’ll go back to it and give it some attention at some point too. Maybe.Joseph Alexander’s, ‘Beginner’s Guitar Lessons: The Essential Guide’, is nothing like that; it heads you towards playing music with real world rhythm and chord skills from day one. Sure there are one or two dull lessons, but by the time you finish you’ll actually want to go back and practice those properly, so you can try them out with the more advanced things you’ve learned.Sure, it’s going to be a while before my skill level grows into that Gretsch I bought, but I always knew there was no real way to go from music consumer to music maker over night. This outstanding book of true beginner’s lessons has me squarely on the path though, and hungering for more.Where’s the down side? I want more. I want the next step. Joseph Alexander has other books and that’s where I’ll turn next. Some of the diagrams are a bit of a squint on a Kindle, but they can be coped with and after a short while you don’t really need those tiny chord charts above the notation except as reminders; they’re visible enough for that without any problems (I might add I’m as blind as a bat and wear glasses, so you probably won’t have any trouble).If like me, you’re wanting to learn guitar and don’t know where to start, or aren’t satisfied with the start you’ve made, then ‘Beginner’s Guitar Lessons: The Essential Guide’ is a great first step that will point you down the right track and get you moving. I thoroughly recommend it. If a middle aged guy with no prior knowledge like myself can do it, then with the help of Joseph Alexander’s book, you can too.

I'm not a beginner by any means, having played during my teens and twenties but falling out of practice in my thirties. Now I'm 39 and have found my passion for the guitar again. This puts me in a unique position, as I know where things are on the fretboard but am out of practice enough that things sounded like garbage whenever I tried to play! I tried a couple of the lesson books I 'used' when first learning, but couldn't stick with them this time either.Enter Mr. Alexander's Beginner's Guitar Lessons. The lessons are broken down perfectly for the new or returning player. Using the techniques he recommends for learning chord grips, fifteen to thirty minutes of practice a day is enough to see, feel and hear results. My chords ring more clearly and buzz and thud less, my changes are smoother, and I'm enjoying my time practice time more as a result. There must be something in Mr. Alexander's writing style, as I'm finding his suggestions to take things slow and always use a metronome easy to follow (where I had no problem ignoring them with other lesson books.. He writes confidently and knowledgeably without talking down to the reader. He is clearly a passionate teacher that wants to help the student succeed with their practice and playing goals.This book was an amazing find. I'm looking forward to finishing the lessons in it - but not too quickly - and studying with some of the author's other titles.Why only four stars? There is one huge omission. A book geared toward new players should definitely stress the importance of tuning the guitar very early on as the first step to a successful practice session. This is a must, as playing the right chord fingering on an even slightly out of tune instrument can make things go from musical to demoralizing mush in no time. So learn how to tune your instrument and/or get a tuner (tons of smartphone apps for this) and always tune your strings before digging into the perfectly sized and paced lessons you'll find here.

Fantastic introduction for the beginning guitar student. If your someone like myself who has suffered through years of frustration trying to learn the guitar then this is book for you. You will be gently introduced to the most important beginning chords and transitions between them. The approach used in this book really allows you to build a familiarity with the guitar. Perfect for establishing a strong foundation for further study.Also have to mention that the author is extremely responsive and genuinely answers questions you might have concerning his material.Do yourself a favor and start out with this book. You won't be disappointed.

I'm a seventy year old beginner. I had a few lessons fifteen years ago which put me off of learning altogether. I've recently started to learn and this is the best book I've discovered by far. It's starts you off with chords that are relatively easy and easy to change one to another. It's not full of jargon and technical information and the diagrams are really clear. You also get to actually play music early on which gives you confidence. I doubt if I'm going to be in a rock group soon but this is an enjoyable learning experience.

I had previously played guitar over 10 years ago (for about 1.5 years) and decided I'd go back to it this year, thinking I'd start from scratch and thought this book would be a good place to start. Unfortunately for me it was probably too basic, yet I would say if you know absolutely nothing about guitar then it would be almost perfect for you.Having previously owned guitar books and bought others since, it should be noted that this is a very short book - only 50 pages. The pages are A4 sized and I think that makes it look worse. On the other hand, if you took guitar lessons with somebody it would probably cost you more money to learn what's in this book. But there are far more detailed books out there for the same or similar money (see Hal Leonard).

I have been playing electric guitar on and off for a while but I still consider myself a novice. More than that, I think I've acquired some bad habits along the way, e.g. the way I hold the guitar, the way I position my fingers, etc. So this book is a great place to start or restart, making sure that you learn the basics the right way. It is divided into chapters that are very easy follow and I think you can do 1 or 2 chapters in half an hour, depending on your pace, also practicing the examples. The examples are very easy to follow and you can download the free audio samples from the website in just a couple of minutes. My only nitpick is that the book could be longer but, then again, the author has several other books with more advanced and specialized topics. Highly recommended for everyone who wants to start playing electric guitar or has limited experience!

After playing for a little while, I had picked up some bad habits and decided I needed to go "back to basics", practice makes permanent supposedly so rather than spending the next few years using the same bad habits I decided to re-school myself.Great book, buy this one first when you're starting out and ingrain good habits

Some people complain of the brevity particularly in view of the price. Well I got the Kindle edition which is a third of the price. Also I liked the fact that it wasn't overly wordy. Some guitar books seem to have a lot of words just to fill the space and it can be a bit of an effort to wade through it all. This book gives you brief instructions and then allows you to get on with actually playing the guitar.Some of the music is a little small in the Kindle edition even when viewed on a PC. What I did was to use the Windows Snipping Tool and grab the tabulature or whatever, paste it into a Google doc and resize as required and then print off on A4. I personally find this more convenient than propping a book up on my music stand.