Play Acoustic: The Complete Guide to Mastering Acoustic Guitar Styles

Great book! Quick shipping. There is a lot to learn from his book for even experienced players, but it is a good book for new players also.

I compare this book to the companion volume on Classical Guitar in the same series, and the comparison is not favorable. The book on Classical Guitar begins at the beginning and proceeds in an orderly way into more developed techniques. This book on Acoustic Guitar only claims to be a "graded course": most of the content is for the guitar player who wants to try other "styles" of playing. The author seems not to know how to deal with the beginner, who gets a mere 16 pages. I give the publisher credit for trying to compress a lot into the book, and the diagrams are very clear (not always correct); but the beginner or intermediate player needs to proceed from the known to the unknown. One can find answers to many questions about guitar technique in this book, but finding them is very difficult, as there is no index. The typeface and notation are too small for my eyes: again, this problem is not found in the volume on Classical Guitar, which would have been a much better model for this book.

This book is a must for amateur musicians who have a wide appetite for different styles of music and want a glimpse into it all. They even cover "Gypsy Jazz" (or Django Reinhardt, the only gypsy jazz guitarist I know) Well done.

The reason I bought this book was because I am interested in learning to play African styles, and there is not a whole lot of info out there on it. This book has a short section on playing African guitar which I have really enjoyed. I also like the sections on other styles (blues, fingerstyle, Pop/Rock, Country, Bluegrass, etc.) I like all styles of music and this book seems great for that. Not a teach a beginner how to play book, but I think more for someone who has played the guitar for a little while and is interested in learning a variety of styles. This will be an excellent resource to use now and for the future. The CD's are also a nice addition. They really were useful in learning some of the African styles. I really like this book

This book represents a broad spectrum approach to guitar playing. The eleven or so chapters are written by about ten different authors whose names (and specialities) are well known in the guitar world to regular readers of guitar magazines. These specialities cover the whole show. No guitar style is omitted, and there is even a short piece on Klezmer music with an enlightening description of the Freygish and Misheberak scales. This makes the book a top to tail examination of current world acoustic guitar identity. With two CDs to breathe musical life into the paper notation, the book is ideal for many. many guitarists. Very few will cover (or want to cover) all the material available here. But even moderately committed guitarists will find much of value between these pages. For beginners, a dazzling opportunity to experience the vastness and variety of the world in which they have chosen to engage. Highly recommended.

Not too bad for a second-hand book.

I have been playing guitar for many years now. Mostly as an accompaniment to my voice. I was hoping this would take me further and improve my guitar technique, it didn't. I don't want to write the book off totally. It didn'nt suit me. Maybe with a tutor I would have got more out of it, but as a self teach it didn't work. Maybe someone who likes auditory learning, or who already has some finger picking skills will find it more satisfactory. It does cover a wide range of guitar styles and comes with 2 CD's, although the CD's do not cover all the exercises in the book. Consider carefully before buying.