Hal Leonard First 50 songs you should strum on guitar: you should strum on guitar

I can already play a good few songs...but this book is beyond me. I still class myself as a beginner as I can't read music, struggle with tab...I have to spend a few hours writing it in a language I understand as my brain just doesn't work that way. I can't stretch my fingers over more than three frets, however much time I spend trying to get my fingers to stretch, and I can't play barre chords to save my life! However, I'd love to learn some more songs, and after searching online find most beginner songs are stuck on the same three chords and are unrecognisable when played, and to be honest I want to play a song that actually sounds like the song, and I also wanted to challenge myself with some different chord changes and strumming patterns. I have a friend that has been playing for over 25 years, I've asked him to play some of these beginner songs found online, thinking maybe I'm just totally rubbish...but they're still unrecognisable when he plays them, so I'm definitely not going to make them sound any better. So this book seemed like a great idea...but I can't understand what half of it means. There is an 'explanation' of the diagrams and terms on the last page (and I use the term explanation very VERY loosely as it assumes prior musical knowledge)...so this book is useless to me. Not happy that Hal Leonard strikes again with a misleading title and a book not suitable for beginners, but aimed at them anyway. I guess I should know better by now...and maybe we should be flattered that we're all considered to be so knowledgeable and capable when just starting out, but instead I just feel fed up and frustrated by it...hence the one star!

I was expecting the melody to be written as a score but this book didn't deliver. What you are provided with are the words with the chords above and unless you know what the song sounds like you would struggle . It's going back . Other reviewers have said the same. Do yourself a favour and research better than I did!At the same time I bought The Complete Guitar Player Acoustic Songbook published by the same company but at least this does have the melody written clearly.

The songs are familiar, however its NOT for novices.

Diapointed, thought this was actually what Andy guitar had produced

Have to know a bit