Solo Guitar Playing - Book 1, 4th Edition

Being self taught on steel string acoustic, I never knew how poorly I played until I began serious college level instruction in classical guitar. My instructor insisted on this book, and we agreed that I would "pretend" I knew nothing abouit playing. What I learned is that I really did know almost nothing about proper form or technique. This book has been an invaluable guide in almost two years of formal training. It starts out with the very basics, and assumes that you know absolutely nothing about guitar. Granted, the beginning exercises are a bit boring, and you should really have an instructor to get the most out of this book, but once you get into the formal pieces, it really picks up. I especially enjoyed the pieces from Carrulli and Sor. WARNING: this book assumes that you wish to learn classical guitar technique, and that you have the dedication and drive to learn proper formal technique. You are expected to learn how to read music, and honestly, once you learn to read music notation, you'll never go back to tab. If you just want to strum along to folk songs this book isn't for you. Likewise, if you just want to learn how to play twelve bar blues, find another book. This book will, however, give you an excellent foundation in guitar technique that is applicable for any style. My only complaint: the book should come in a spiral bound edition, as it is hard to keep this one open on the music stand.

Not only does this book introduce students to the essential techniques, but also to a wide variety of composers from various countries and periods. I feel this is important as it allows the beginner to not only gain an appreciation for the contributions of these composers, but also allows the student to determine the area of focus they would like to pursue in the future, whether that be a preference for Baroque period or Spanish composers, etc.If there is a flaw, it is found in the accompanying CD. Students, such as myself, can be mislead in what is attainable. For example, the first piece on the CD is called "Spanish Study", which sounds like a simplified version of Leyenda. Nevertheless, if you hear how fast Frederick Noad plays, it is extremely discouraging because there is no way in the world 99.99% of beginning students are going to be able to play this first piece at tempo. It leaves you feeling, "if this is what is expected of a beginning student on the first piece, maybe this instrument is way beyond my capacity, and I should just look for an easier instrument." So, I feel the CD would have been better done if Frederick Noad had played the pieces at a tempo that is realistic for a beginning student. To me, the purpose of an accompanying CD is not to show how a professional would play it, but to show you how you should sound if you play it correctly for the student level to which the book is targeted.Secondly, one thing beginning students may not know about is a "digital editing", which I'm sure was done on some of the pieces played, since the average for classical guitar is 100 digital edits per 20 minutes of music. An excellent example of this is in the beautiful "El Testamen de Amelia". If the student tries to reproduce those phenomenal artificial harmonics that Frederick Noad plays on the CD, you can spend weeks trying to reproduce such a crisp, clean bell-like sound. Fortunately, my own teacher, who has been playing for over 40 years, pointed this out to me and showed me what can realistically be expected in terms of sound produced in artificial harmonics. So, my point is the student can spend many frustrating weeks trying to produce a sound that is exactly like that on the CD, not knowing it's impossible since we can't digitally edit our playing. Consequently, you might want to just buy the book without the CD as it can be more harmful than it is helpful in your progress.One other shortcoming is the lack of a glossary of musical terms used in the pieces. For example, in the same piece mentioned above (El Testamen de Amelia), he uses the term "rall. poco". I spent considerable time going back through the entire book, as well as searching the Internet, trying to figure out what that meant. I was not able to find out until my next visit to see my own teacher.With the exception of the two shortcomings mentioned, it's an excellent book, and I'm glad I chose the Noad instruction books over others. The final series of Tarrega and Llobet pie

Noad is the standard text for technically oriented guitar instruction. The pieces that Noad has selected for this volume are intelligently selected and all have plenty of comments to help you interpret the music. Sometimes my teacher has better suggestions for fingering than Noad supplies, but this is a minor complaint. Noad is very traditional in his approach; sometimes his reasons for choosing a certain fingering or phrasing are based on obscure historical precedent that the less knowledgeable player will not be aware of, but trusting Noad's scholarship will enhance your playing. This book will definitely get you reading better, but don't rely on this book to teach you to read. If you don't read yet, go to a more basic book before this one. I don't have the CD, but I wish I did. I think that having a CD of the music is key if you are studying on your own.

Do get this book if you are going to try or are trying to learn how to play the guitar by yourself. The difficulty of exercises progresses slowly and with complete explanations before going on to more challenging material. Actual pieces of music are very pretty and fun to play, and footnoted at parts where the reader may encounter trouble. Of course, it does help a lot if you have prior experience in reading music. One of the things I like most about this book is that it does not have songs like "Old McDonald" and such. =) It starts solely with plain exercises, and then only when the reader is ready to play actual music does Noad integrate them into the lessons. The only problem I have with this book, which doesn't mean the book is in any way defective, is that it doesn't explain and teach chords very well, so playing music other than classical may be difficult if you learn guitar from this book only. But I think it's a great book anyway.