Guitar Reading Workbook: A Basic Course in Music Notation for Players of All Levels

For many of us who want to play and express our imagination through guitar, there is weird tendency to neglect lots of basic knowledge of music; with such a great excuses like "Jimi Hendrix couldn't read music, but he was arguably the greatest, so guitar player don't require knowledge of reading music" or "music is all about expression of feeling and inspiration, not those "uncool" paper studying". Well, at least myself was that kind of guitar player, and I was struggled guitar player for years. Rambling with pentatonic scale and never sounded "right". And this "Guitar Reading Workbook" was one of my solutions to overcome these problems. "Guitar Reading Workbook" is my fourth purchase from the author, Barrett Tagliarino. Thus, this review would be some kind of accumulated review with other books from the same author, but I really feel that this book should be the first one I would recommend to anybody who want to be "serious" about guitar and music. I first bought "Guitar Fretboard Workbook"; the purchase was purely based on Amazon's bestseller ranking, and lots of reviews. I just wanted to give it a try. "Guitar Fretboard Workbook" discusses much same old fundamental stuff like basic scales and concepts about intervals and chords, but with very effective method based on five root shapes, and the author's writing was very easy to follow, so I got interested in his other works. Then, I purchase "Chord Tone Soloing". This book discusses about "which" notes would sound great over specific chords. Those target tone idea was something I was never able to figure out by myself, so this book was also quite refreshing and very helpful. But then I got another problem, timing. Even though I knew "what" to play, I never quite get "when" to play. That's why I got "Rhythmic Lead Guitar". This one goes over very basic concepts of rhythm, and "counting". Counting the beats, this simple idea was unbelievably effective to be aware of music itself. Since simple counting gave greater chance to be engaged with the music, then I started to think that complete visualization of what to play, and when to play is my ultimate goal as a musician or composer. So I finally got this "Guitar Reading Workbook" to organize and visualize my idea onto some kind of standard format.My previous composition or improvisation always sounded like utter mess. Even though I got great inspiration, I was never able to make a music out of it. I just couldn't understand what was going on. Now with the help of awesome works from great author and guitar player, Barrett Tagliarino, I can pull out, and evolve my simple inspiration such as chord progression or riffs into a real music. And without the organization ability that I achieved from the "Guitar Reading Workbook", I'm pretty sure that wasn't even possible.I highly suggest this "Guitar Reading Workbook" to any frustrated guitar player who never quite "get" the music, and always feel something is missing while you're playing solo, composing or anything. Being able to read and write the music will definitely help you.

This workbook is simply the best out there to get you started reading standard notations for guitar. If you've always wanted to start learning but have no idea where to start, this is the perfect book!! It starts from the very basic and builds up gradually to develop your reading skills. By the time you're done with this book, you'll definitely be ready to start reading most of the sheet music that is out there.What I like about this book is that the author Barrett Tagliarino has done an excellent job breaking down difficult concepts into easy-to-understand ideas and created lots of different exercises to help develop your skills. I also like how he recommends saying out loud the things you're trying to learn to help you get the idea into your head as well as in your fingers. This is very important especially for beginner readers as it builds a strong foundation for the more difficult things ahead. I have had the luxury of studying with Barrett himself and he is one of the finest teachers I've had. The way he explains concepts and ideas is very straightforward and simple and this is clearly translated into this book.If you're interested, you can also check out Guitar Fretboard Workbook (great for learning everything on your guitar fretboard) and Chord Tone Soloing (incredible resource for learning how to solo and what scales to use etc) both written by Barrett. I highly recommend these two books as it helps greatly with your improvisation, creating ideas for soloing, creating melodies for song ideas and knowing where to play what! Awesome books to go along with this reading workbook. I can't wait for your next book!

The Guitar Reading Workbook is fantastic tool for learning to sight read guitar music.At the age of 44, I decided to learn how to play guitar about a year ago. My musical instruction as a child was limited to what is taught in an elementary school classroom. Consequently, I have found learning to read music quite challenging.The book has many exercises that involve physically writing notes in music notation and as such is really a workbook. It felt strange to draw many of the elements of music notation (e.g. clefs, notes, rests, etc.), but I found this approach worked very well for me as it made it easier to recall the material.The book also includes recitation and verbalization exercises that helped link the notation to the act of playing guitar. Some guitar tablature (tab) is used to aid in learning music notation, but it is used infrequently as the focus is on reading notation.In addition, I found many tips and suggestions that improved my playing ability. Some tips may be obvious to many people, but I found them very helpful.For example, one early tips was to develop the habit of continuing to play even if you make a mistake. Prior to reading this tips, I would constantly start over or repeat sections of songs. Just making this simple change made my playing much better.I highly recommend this book. I feel it has helping me become much better at reading music and playing guitar.

Great book for beginners and intermediates as well. Highly recommend this book!

Very useful for the intermediate guitarist who doesn't read music. Recommended over other guitar theory books carried by Amazon.

Naja,... weder Fisch noch Fleisch. Teilweise ganz brauchbar, teilweise nicht meinen Erwartungen entsprechend. Für "All Levels" ist auf jeden Fall völlig übertrieben. Ich würde es eine Einführung nennen, mehr nicht. Für Anfänger also ok, aber für Fortgeschrittene eher langweilig. Für eine Einführung vermisse ich Aufstellungen und Zusammenfassungen, um eine schnelle Übersicht zu bekommen. So muss der Anfänger alles lesen und sich das Wesentliche selbst zusammenfassen. Ich kann das Buch nur bedingt empfehlen.

I learned a lot from this book. Also it's much easier to follow than some other music theory books I bought. I'd recommend this book to anyone looking to learn the fretboard as well as some basic music theories. I'm buy other books wrote by this author.

I have two other guitar tuition books by Barrett Tagliarino and I must say I have really come to appreciate his style finding it very easy to follow.Apart from being able to read and relate note pitches correctly on the fly my biggest difficulty with musical notation is applying a counting method that converts the meaning of all those little black symbols into the intended rhythm/metre.The formulas applied in this book are certainly working for me and provided I'm prepared to take his instructions onboard I reckon I'll finally have been given the guidance to succeed in something that has been frustrating me for years.

Wow, this book and Barrett' the other book Fretboard workbook open the music world to me. I started to understand fretboard and the music theory behind them. These two books are the best guitar books I have ever purchased. After reading these two books, I became addicted to collecting Barrett' the other books. So far I bought all his 6 books and one DVD. I really enjoy it. These two books are must-have to a guitar beginner. Must Have!! You can google it there are so many people recommending these two books on understanding guitar fretboard and music theory.

If you are a guitarist interested in learning to read and write notation this is the book for you it covers almost everything but certainly all tgr basics and then some. If you are familiar with Barrett's work you know that he is quite possibly the best instructional author around. Very much like the "fretboard workbook" this book is a "workbook" with written exercises, this is an excellent method of learning anything! So get this book and start your sight reading today!!!