Solo Guitar Playing Book 1

by Frederick Noad

Book Overview

Este manual para la ense?anza y pr?ctica de la guitarra est? dirigido a todos aquellos interesados en interpretar este hermoso instrumento de cuerdas cuyo origen se remonta a culturas milenarias. Un... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 002870763X
• ISBN13: 9780028707631
• Release Date: January 1994
• Publisher: Music Sales
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 1.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 8.4" x 10.9"

Customer Reviews

I never knew

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.

A very good place to start.

This is the book I started with and I'm very glad I did! Noad is probably the most accessible guitar method author around. I'm self-taught and believe me there are many ways you can go wrong by being your own teacher. If you like the dummies genre of computer books you'll love this method. He doesn't assume you know anything to start with or try to impress with his advanced mastery. But he does have an intimate knowledge of what a beginner needs to know and how to impart that knowledge. His books one and two are an excellent example of what separates a great guitarist and teacher from just a great guitarist. But you need to read and re-read the text very carefully. There are subtle points, which if glossed over will cause untold pain and cursing later on. But it's all right there in the book. If you heed his advice and study twice as carefully as if you had an instructor who could catch those mistakes then you'll be ok! All these guitar methods (including this one) have one glaring deficiency: Lack of enough and varied practice material. Maybe I'm a little dense but classical guitar is not easy. It takes time and a LOT of practice! One can only repeat the same few lines of notation so many times without getting bored to tears. So I solved the problem by getting just about every method book known to man. After the first couple of books it starts to flow and become fun! Each book goes over the same concepts in a little different way with of course different practice pieces. The flaws of one book are cancelled by another and it becomes exciting as you move faster and faster through each text. What was once arduous becomes smooth and pleasant! The Carcassi book is great once you are a little more adept. It's purportedly for beginners but is rather dry and pedantic and a tough slog if you're just starting. There's some great stuff in there however if you already have the basics of notation down. I found it very useful for learning the higher positions. The Christopher Parkening books are great. He starts right out and then keeps going with very easy, pleasant sounding practice pieces, which helps keep your enthusiasm high. But like most others (unlike Noad) he leaves out small but crucial details that leave one scratching ones head or throwing projectiles. But if you've done Noad first you just say AH! I know what that is! Jason Waldron is also good and straight forward, easy to understand. (Although I wish he would come out with his second method book already!) He has a whole gaggle of songbooks (6) filled with familiar folk tunes, some classical and including CDs. They are very pleasant, easy, confidence building practice pieces. But I prefer Baroque. Noad does a very excellent book of Baroque pieces. He also has a Renaissance book with some very pretty tunes. What a joy to read and play such beautiful music from hundreds of years ago! It's definitely worth the work! Now, to end on a bit of a heretical note. I had to teach myself because I really

Excellent Introduction to Both Techniques and Composers

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

Excellent instruction for advanced beginners

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.

I love this book.

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.