13 best guitar books

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Guitar Aerobics

Techniques taught include alternate picking, arpeggios, sweep picking, string skipping, legato, string bending, and rhythm guitar.

Audio Tracks Demonstrate How Licks Should Sound

The accompanying online audio includes all 365 workout licks plus play-along grooves in every style at eight different metronome settings.

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Teach Yourself to Play Guitar

This is an effective, uncomplicated and practical alternative to the multitude of traditional self-instructional method books.

Includes Lesson Examples and Song Excerpts

A variety of musical styles are included, such as rock, folk, classical, country and more.

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The Beatles Complete Chord Songbook

This great collection features all 194 songs written and sung by The Beatles, specially transcribed here for strumming guitarists, from the actual recordings, in the original keys. Each song includes chord symbols, guitar chord boxes and complete lyrics. Also features a helpful playing guide and a full discography.

Table of Contents

Find each song in an easy-to-search alphabetical listing.

Table of Contents Continued

194 songs are included in this songbook!

Sample Page

Example of the chord symbols, guitar chord boxes, and complete lyrics inside this collection.

Sample Page

Perfect for strumming guitarists!

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Essential Elements for Guitar - Book 1 - Comprehensive Guitar Method

Take your guitar teaching to a new level! Hal Leonard's top-selling comprehensive method for band and strings is now also available for guitar. With the time-tested>Essential Elements for Guitar is sure to become a staple of guitar teachers' instruction - and get beginning guitar students off to a great start.

This method has been designed to meet the National Standards for Music Education, with features such as cross-curricular activities, quizzes, multicultural songs, basic improvisation, and more. Concepts covered in Book 1 include: getting started; basic music theory; guitar chords; notes on each string; music history; ensemble playing; performance spotlights; and much more!

Take a look at what's inside this comprehensive guitar method!

This book is designed for use with any type of guitar—acoustic or electric. Any of these guitars can be adapted for use in a wide variety of styles of music. Take some time getting familiar with the individual parts of your guitar as shown on this page.

Take a look at what's inside this comprehensive guitar method!

Notes on the First Strings

Now let's play some single notes. Follow the same right- and left-hand position guidelines as you did with chords. Here you will pick only one string at a time.

Downstroke: This sign tells you to strike the string or strings with a downward motion of the pick or thumb.

Take a look at what's inside this comprehensive guitar method!

Playing Chords

Try these two new chords: G and D7. Notice that the previous chords you've learned involve only three strings, as does the G chord introduced here. Later in the book, the full versions of these chords will be introduced. However, the D7 chord below is your first full chord, played with four strings. The full version of the G chord can be found on page 23.

Take a look at what's inside this comprehensive guitar method!

Arpeggio - A "broken" chord whose notes are played individually and in succession instead of all at the same time.

Finger Picking - A very popular style of guitar accompaniment which uses arpeggios instead of strummed chords. The distinctive sound of finger picking comes from the right-hand thumb and fingers plucking only one string each in succession.