The best book for a newer guitar player

[Undeadpaladin]

Ok well i'm not new per say to playing the guitar, but skill wise i guess i'm not very good, or close to how i want to be. I tried lessons but they are far to expensive and had a few bad teachers who thought that teaching me a couple licks from songs was helpful.

Anyway i strum my way through some cord changes, rock out the power chords and play some little riffs with basic scales. I'm really serious about improving right now though.

I wanted something that teaches me theory, finger and chord exercies to improve my playing and everything in between. Stuff relevant to modern music, rock etc. I found a couple very good books but they where too intense on the theory side, i honestly don't need to know everything now. Just the basics and how they "fit" together on the guitar to get jamming myself. Also some good exercises that are fun to play and will really help my skills improve. I'm not interested in learning how to read music etc, tabs are good enough for me. Maybe i'll get into more advancded topics but i want to be lead in slowly.

I know there are like 10 million guitar books out there, just hoping someone can point me in a good direction.

 

[18&Life]

Google.
There you can find any technique you want. :wink:

 

[RJ2213]

im not sure of any books, but there's quite a few videos out there.

for technique i'd highly recommend John Petrucci's "rock discipline" or Paul Gilbert's "intense rock". if you also want to learn a new approach to notes and scales then i highly recommend marty friedman's "melodic control". paul gilbert also recently came out with a new video, but i havent seen it, but knowing him its worth the money.

 

[TheBlackman]

for technique i'd highly recommend John Petrucci's "rock discipline"

I would recomend petrucci's book "Wild Stringdom" over the Rock Discipline video. It's an incredible book for advancing your skills, just the section on developing new licks from existing ones is worth the price alone, worth checking out. I have the Rock Discipline VHS and don't really see much point to the 1/2 hour stretching..sorry John!

 

[RJ2213]

i totally forgot about wild stringdom, and i even own it. good call blackman.

 

[stompboxfreak72]

Im not sure about for beginners...but the best technique based/ scale based book for me is Jack Zucker's " Sheets of Sound"

Volume I is a great book....some of it too jazz laden but there is tons of great stuff in here for rock players also.

Troy Stetina produced some great books in the 80's and 90's that were excellent starting points for lead players. Stetina went on to become Mark Tremonti's instructor once Creed fell apart and Tremonti decided to actually learn to play a lead. If you listen to Alter Bridge then you know that Tremonti's playing was greatly enhanced by Troy Stetina.

Lastly, it may sound dumb but seriously go pick up a blues Cd ( I love Stevie Ray Vaughn's " Live Alive" ) and just jam along to it. The chord progressions are simple and if you can learn a pentatonic scale then you will have a ball just jamming over some blues based music.

I hope any of that helps. Good luck and happy woodshedding !