The Complete Idiot's Guide to Playing the Guitar

Overview

You're no idiot, of course. You know the guitar is a difficult instrument to learn-and it's more than just plucking strings. To become proficient, professional musicians spend years studying and practicing.

But you don't have to enroll in music college! The Complete Idiot's Guide to Playing the Guitar, will show you exactly how to start strumming songs from this classic instrument! In this newly updated and revised Complete Idiot's Guide, you get:

--The anatomy of a guitar-identifying all components-and how to string and tune it properly.

--Practice techniques-from scales to full pieces.

--Expanded coverage on musical styles-from folk to flamenco to blues.

Editorial Reviews

Editorial Reviews for this product are not available at this time.

Author Information

Bio of Frederick Noad

Guitarist, lutenist, author and teacher, Frederick Noad grew up in England. Originally trained on the violin and piano he took up the guitar in his early teens. After graduating from Oxford he came to California in 1957 to organize a story department for the J. Arthur Rank Organization in Hollywood. When the film company suffered some setbacks and had to curtail its U.S. plans Noad decided to stay on. Soon after he was offered a job playing the guitar, which had become a favourite avocation, and he began to teach and to write for the instrument as well. Thus began a long and happy (if unexpected) musical career. At this time he studied composition with Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco at the latter's home in Beverly Hills and attended master classes of Andres Segovia and Julian Bream as a performer. Noad's first book, "Playing The Guitar" became a paperback best seller in the sixties, and this success lead to a succession of further instruction books and anthologies (listed below). In 1966 Noad launched the award winning TV series "Guitar with Frederick Noad" for PBS The programs were enthusiastically received from coast to coast, and were credited with introducing 100,000 new players to the instrument. The currently running educational television.series is a colour remake of the original with the benefit of the latest electronic techniques . Noad has been a faculty member of the University of California, Irvine, and the California Institute of the Arts. He has performed as a soloist, as part of a duet team, in concert with a lyric tenor and also as a continuo player in early opera. In addition to the guitar he plays the lute and theorbo.

Customer Reviews

• Interesting reading but not helpful as a guide.

  Posted February 07, 2009 by Russ, Sherman Oaks, CA

  I liked the writing and approach of the author and especially the inserts about great guitar players and historical developments. The synopsis of the chapter, what he calls "what you need to know" is helpful if you don't want to get into the topic right now.
  
  However the music notations and examples of the book appear on the Sony Reader in such small print it is unreadable and therefore not helpful as a guide to learn to play guitar. Also the CD that is included with the the physical edition is not with the electronic one so the examples of various playing techniques are not available. All in all I would not recommend this if it is to be used as a guitar learning guide.

Additional Info

Imprint

Penguin Group, Inc.

Filesize

4.42 MB

Number of Pages

288

eBook ISBN

9780786582235