Hal Leonard Guitar Method Book 1: Book/CD Pack

Newly revised! The second edition of this world-famous method by Will Schmid and greg Koch is preferred by teachers because it makes them more effective while making their job easier. Students enjoy its easy-to-follow format that gives them a solid music education while letting them play songs right away. Book 1 provides beginning instruction including tuning, 1st position melody playing, C, G, G7, D7, and Em chords, rhythms through eighth notes, solos and ensembles and strumming. Features a chord chart, and traditional songs like: Amazing Grace * Greensleeves * and When the Saints Go Marching In.

Customer Reviews:

Geezer learns guitar... me...

By Guitar Player "Retired USCG" - November 15, 2009

As a geezer let me tell you that i HAVE learned to play
my new Les Paul electric guitar using this series of
lesson books....books 1 through 3 & the BLUES book as well.

Book 1, will get you actually reading sheet music and
playing it. Mission accomplished.

I wish I would have learned guitar about 5 or 6 decades ago.
It is fun!

From a guitar instructor...

By J. Inman - January 31, 2009

I use this at the store where I teach guitar and the book is very good for beginning students. However, it gets boring once the student starts getting a firm grasp ( about 1/4 of the way through the book). That is the point where I only use the book to keep the student's mind fresh on sight reading and I move on to other things. Probably not a good book if you want to teach yourself. Good for an instructor to use to guide a student though.

Logical, Simple, Well Paced, and Clear

By Nick Roseth - July 6, 2010

As a secondary music educator, I believe this book is a GREAT book for people who want to learn how to play guitar (especially for those who have no musical training at all). Pedagogically the method is logical, simple, well paced, and clear. Each string is introduced one at a time and new exercises effectively combine and utilize skills previous taught. While many method books throw tons of initially irrelevant information at you from the start, this book only introduces and teaches what is necessary to properly play the material. TAB is introduced later in the series, but the first book requires students to learn traditional notation (i.e. note and rhythm reading).

Some previous reviewers call the exercises in this book "old" or "outdated," but majority of the material are familiar folk songs. Folk songs are generally... old. Ode to Joy, Greensleeves, Yankee Doodle, Star Spangled Banner, etc., are the types of tunes you will find in this book.

For those of you... read more