Music Reading for Guitar: Essential Concepts Series

I've been teaching guitar since shortly after I recieved my BA in classical guitar performance in 2001, and I've used a few different methods. This one is great for anyone wanting to learn to read music on guitar. It starts off with basic rhythms, which too many methods overlook in order to hurry off to playing 150 year old folk songs that no one cares about anymore. It also starts off teaching you notes in the 5th position (which is more useful and better intonated than open position). Imcludes music theory and builds progressively from lesson to lesson, reviewing things you have just learned and putting them in the context of popular classical songs. For those of you who want modern popular songs written in a method book, keep in mind that hit songs get outdated very quickly and with classical songs, authors don't have to pay royalties to use them (keeping the books cheaper for you). The two points where it could use improvement are: 1. An accompanying cd would make the rhythms easier to understand for beginners 2. chords written out in notes. It does do a good job of introducing chords in the context of lead sheets which are largely ignored by the likes of Hal Leonard, Mel Bay, Alfred, et. al. I recommend it with "The songwriters workshop:Harmony" book (for theory info), www.guitargrid.com for scales and "contemporary chord khancepts" for more advanced chords.

I don't want to repeat what the good reviewers have said but I would like to add my opinions on this book. This is my favorite guitar book thus far because it teaches you the "anatomy" of the guitar music in which many guitarists today don't know. Just because you can play chords and strum the strings doesn't mean you can play guitar any way you want. After over a year of playing the guitar, I'm still learning from this book. With what you pay for, this book is worth it. Get a book of guitar scales and you'll be all set in your guitar grooves. I have many guitar books/DVD that's just sitting there because it's useless. With this one, I'm consistantly improving.

I don't know what the last reviewer was talking about. The musicality of the reading excercises was one of the things I actually liked about the book. Apparently Bach, Mozart, & Beethoven are now considered boring. You'll find plenty of classical melodies that are both fun and challenging (for persons of limited reading experience). Some cool duets too, though I think he could've added more becuase reading with another human being is great practice. There is a nice opening section which covers rhythm a bit, though it really could have had even more excercises as well. I did like the fact that Oakes starts us off in the 5th position rather than the traditional open. Most melodies can be played here, and while not the best for classical guitar - for single note reading the fifth position freely allows access to the higher notes which is a good thing. If you're very very new to reading, you may want to supplement this book with something even easier (maybe Mel Bay or Hal Leanord book I). I say supplement because those books alone get boring very quickly. There may be better books available, but this worked well enough for me. And once you have the right books (and a metronome), the best thing you can do for yourself is to stick to a routine and start your practice sessions with reading.

An excellent method for learning how to read guitar music. Mr. Oakes is an excellent teacher and guitarist giving his informative insight and knowledge into reading guitar music. Buy it if you want to be able to read music for the guitar!

This book is an incredible tool for the guitarist that can play but not read. There are tons of exercises and explanations that are all really helpful, and then before you know it, you can competently sightread. I love this book. It rocks. I'd tried tons of "learn to read" books but they're all written for other instruments, or they're written for people that haven't played the instrument before, which bites for people who can play but can't read. Buy it if you can't read music but have played guitar for a while (14 years in my case). Keep on rockin'.