books that help

thanks alot guys ive been needing to get a decent book for some time now, something that does give somthing decent to play and is relitivley basic as well, i have also been looking at the lessons on this site, i didnt realise how good they were untill i hed a good look at them........cheers guys

I found early on the Troy Stetina Book "Total Rock" to be fun.

I'll second Dagwood on this, it's a good book to make some noise with, and gives you confidence that you can actually play something that sounds reasonable. It falls down a little on teaching the concepts behind what you are playing, but as a beginner you'd tend to want to make some noise first and only at a later date do you start to question what it is your actually playing - or at least thats what happened to me!

I'll third it! Some of the lessons are very easy and sound great. Others are much more advanced and also sound great! And there's a variety of styles - metal, punk, ska, rockabilly, southern rock. Joevan's mini-review is very accurate - the book's not great for theory, but the tunes are lots of fun to play.

Just in case it's not quite obvious that this is a good book, I'll throw in my vote for it as well. Troy writes great books. 'Total Rock' is a great place to start, and I would highly recommend 'Speed Mechanics for Lead Guitar' by him as well, after you have the concepts from the first book under your belt. The lessons in the latter are nowhere near easy, but working on them has helped me improve more than anything else that I have found so far. Best of luck!

Guitar Fretbard Workbook is really worthy of mention here. I've been taking lessons for a year and a half, and this book helped me understand much theory that was escaping me. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED for anyone who wants to understand the fretboard.

I also found the Guitar Fretboard Workbook (by Barrett Tagliarino) very useful.

I may be dating myself by suggestion this on but "The Complete Guitar Player" a four book series by Russ Shipton to be a good beginning place. You may be able to pick up the omnibus edition somewhere and I would also recommend getting the Songbook companion to the series if you go with it. Some cool classics from Dylan, the Beatles, Donovan, ect. are used in the series. If your looking for theory or classic notation this series is not the place to look, it's very light in both of those areas.

For a good down to earth look at theory pick up "Music Theory for Guitarists" by Tom Serb ( aka "Noteboat" on the GN forums). Highly recommnded.

Take care and have fun.

For music theory, I've been reading Musical Principles for the Skeptical Guitarist (Vol. 1 and Vol.2)
http://www.skepticalguitarist.com/books.htm

They're pretty easy to read. I'm not sure how it compares to Noteboat's book, so if anyone wants to chime in...