The Four Most Popular Guitar Method Books for Beginners
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One of the hardest parts of teaching guitar lessons or teaching yourself how to play guitar is choosing the right method book. There are many method books out there, and often you won’t realize the method book isn’t right until you are half way through it – that’s a lot of wasted time!
I decided to use my experience with guitar teaching to make a video to help teachers choose method books. In this video I take a look at four of the most popular guitar method books – each of which I have a lot of experience teaching out of. The books are:
Jerry Snyder’s Guitar School – https://www.amazon.com/Jerry-Snyders-Guitar-School-Method/dp/0882849018/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1520967369&sr=1-2&keywords=jerry+snyders+guitar+school+method+book+1
Mel Bay’s Modern Guitar Method – https://www.amazon.com/Modern-Guitar-Method-Grade-1/dp/0786693274/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1520967232&sr=1-1&keywords=mel+bay+guitar+method+book+1
Alfred’s Basic Guitar Method – https://www.amazon.com/Alfreds-Basic-Guitar-Method-Bk/dp/0739047930/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1520967313&sr=8-4&keywords=alfred%27s+guitar+method
Hal Leonard Guitar Method – https://www.amazon.com/Hal-Leonard-Guitar-Method-Book/dp/0793533929/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1520967430&sr=1-1&keywords=hal+leonard+guitar+method+book+1
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Alan Rigoletto is a professional guitarist and guitar teacher based out of Lambertville, New Jersey.
Please be sure to read his guitar lesson blog at http://www.rigolettomusic.com
#Popular #Guitar #Method #Books #Beginners
Originally posted by UCfBH9NqW07tHtlBAIhoTs5A at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drD57YvS4nk
A advice for those who are starting in guitar is not using Berkley's guitar method. I started that method and frustrated me doing the chord exercise, and it has a little bit of a known repertory. I remember I was looking forward to learning guitar and my teacher told me that using the Berkley method would learn a lot. I didn't agree because guitar method books must be simple to read with easy songs to learn at home. Anyone who had the same problem with the Berkley guitar method?
Thank you! May ask which has the best audio examples?
Suzuki's left-hand method ????✊????????
I found a lot of success just working through a guitar theory book. I learned all the scales, chords, triads, 7th chords, arpeggios, and intervals without all the fluff of a method book. And it only took me a few months.
I think the method book format is becoming outdated. Give students a syllabus, help them build a practice plan, buy a drill book or search for exercises on youtube. Repeat for a year or 2 and you're an intermediate guitar player.
Does anyone know a great book for chords only?
Learn and Master Guitar 20 DVD version w/book.
Couldn't agree more about the Mel Bay Guitar Method. I've never used it for my own students because it was the book I had when I was very little and it was super difficult. It completely turned me off sight reading notation for quite some time.
Thanks, this was extremely helpful figuring out a book to teach my kids with.
Learn how to read music with the guitar, and you don't need a method… All you need is the music
Not really sure why guitar players are afraid to learn how to read music…
Have you tried the "Fast Track Guitar Method Book" by Hal Leonard?
I use "Everbody's Guitar Method Book 1". It's very similar to Hal Leonard but I prefer it's rhythmic interpretation of certain shared songs better. Plus I think it's easier to look at. It's also convenient to point students to the YouTube page sampling each lesson, though some of the samples are over accompanied to the point it may not be eady for young students to differentiate the melody line they are playing. But then Hal Leonard samples have the same issue.
Hello, Alan. First, thank you for such an articulate video discussing your opinions on these books. A quote I really enjoyed from a book I read this summer was "No muss, no fuss." This video embodies that, and I appreciate it. My question for you is perhaps not easily answered. I have been playing guitar for about, let's say 5 years on and off. I am by no means a great player, but I can definitely play some songs and have decent skills. In middle school and high school, I loved music theory classes. However, I feel that my interest and ambition to learn music theory and to become comfortable with chord progressions and scales and keys, etc. was lost in my transition to learning the guitar, self-taught through YouTube. I speculate that a good guitar book might take me back to the beginning enough to teach me in a more in-depth way to fulfill my eagerness to link my broad-stroke theory understanding to the guitar. The first book you recommended almost sounds like that may be the right choice, could you comment your opinion based on my situation? Perhaps other people are in the same spot. Thanks!
I've used alfreds kid's guitar course for "guitar class" with 4th graders. I can't recommend it enough for young learners
The Guitarist's Way is a pretty good one, particularly up to the eight edition (1992).
Subsequent ones all good but some tweaks may not have been necessarily beneficial.
On a side note – thanks for the heads up on the Hal Leonard guitar book, the same one for Ukulele is one of the better books I've seen.
Thank u Very much, I really like hall Leonard book, its easy for teaching guitar
I appreciate your careful attention to detail in explaining the differences between each! Thanks again for being thorough for beginners like myself ????????
Have both HalLeonard, and Alfred methods. Really like Hal Leonard, and don't want to waste precious time going through the Alfred course simultaneously. I read music very well, with advanced theory since I am a singer, songwriter, composer, with experience on piano and other instruments. Just wondering how much I should take from Alfred beginning method, if at all, at this point. Check it Out! Ciao!!!
I'm interested on the book how do I pay and how do I get it?
In my country rigoletto is a sleng for puking haha
Super helpful. I’m gonna start to get to guitar lessons soon. Thanks for taking the time to do this.
I went through both the mel bay modern guitar method and alfred basic guitar method in the 1970s- 90s. it was difficult, but it did teach the fundamentals of music pertaining to guitar. the songs were lame, but it was really about a lesson in key signatures, sight reading and harmonized scales and of course dexterity of the plectrum or pick. i am older now but i now enjoy picking up a lead sheet and grasping the construction of the melody and harmony. so studying these two books over the years was not useless, it was just a long road to travel.
Another issue which escaped my attention is 🙂
I'd like to learn to compose and play a few selected genre:
post-bop, flamenco, bluegrass, classics.
The rules are the same everywhere, major chord is major chord
but all the styles mentioned are very different from each other
so how to learn all of this things,what makes them different
sufficiently enough to allow compose and improvise within the chosen genre?
From which books?
Hi 🙂 what do You know about harmonic Major and his modes?:)
I mean,how to make modal progressions for each of this modes
how it looks functional harmony for ionian b6
where we can find songs in this scale and modes of harmonic Major
or books/dvds in which someone teach about harmonic Major
because I don't understand why there is nothing all around 🙁
What is wrong with harmonic Major?
This is some kind of taboo or blasphemy? 😉
Could You make video about harmonic Major mysteries?
PS. and orchestration also called instrumentation,from which books
you can learn it best, where to start?
it's not about writing scores for a symphony orchestra 🙂
just for myself and my rock band 😀 and a midi program
that replaces the small orchestra 😉
Is hal leonard good for me as i am beginner and with no teacher?
Thanks for sharing your knowledge
You should create weekly guitar lessons using these correct guitar rudiments books to teach the correct and authentic and efficient way of playing guitar for absolute beginners.
Cheers for the video content! Forgive me for the intrusion, I would appreciate your thoughts. Have you tried – Riddleagan Skillful Playing Remedy (search on google)? It is an awesome exclusive guide for learning complex guitar chords and become a pro without the headache. Ive heard some great things about it and my old buddy Taylor got astronomical success with it.
Thanks a lot man.
Thanks for the video. That was helpful!
Which book would you recommend for me im 15 and im new to guitar
I was wondering if you can recommend the best one for a 12yo? My daughter plays the cello so she picks up quick, however, I don’t know much about guitar.
I am giving a shout out to the much overlooked "Everybody's Guitar Method". They are inexpensive, and I find them excellent (I have also checked out the Alfred, Hal Leonard, and Mel Bay books…all are sufficient, but Everybody's GM has so far been my favorite, and I have taught several beginners using it). I can't explain why, but the pace, the song selection, and especially the accompaniments just strike me as tasteful. It is my go to…within one or two lessons, brand new students are reading simple melodies that sound great with the accompaniment, and have a grasp of how reading music works. Anyhow, just wanted to let ppl know, for me it's been the one I go to first
Hal Leonard book was useless for me.nice diagrams with no explanation of how to read
appreciate the review –thanks