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Another Great Guitar Book

This book…

Totally Guitar

Has a wealth of great guitar information. Over 600 pages of guitar history, playing styles, pictures, and some information on rarely seen makes and models of guitars from all eras. As the Amazon reviews quite rightly say:

This book is a real bargain…not only is it excellent value at (rrp £20 – cheaper bought on Amazon), it is also full of fascinating and useful information. Chapters are;

Sound and Construction
Essential ingredients that determine the sonic characteristics and playing feel of the world’s most popular guitars.

Amps and effects
A look under the hood of the gear that shapes your sound.

Maintenance
A guide to care, cleaning, set-up, repair and minor customisation of your guitar.

Play Guitar
Take a taste of the ten most popular guitar styles – to find new inspiration for your own playing, or an entirely new direction.

  • Acoustic
  • Rock and Pop
  • Blues
  • Country
  • Rock’n’Roll
  • Metal
  • Latin
  • African
  • Classical
  • Jazz

Guitar Manufacturers
A unique illustrated directory with all the inside info on the great electric guitars and the stories of their development for 130 leading brands.

Glossary
A detailed, comprehensive and fully illustrated guide to the language of guitar.

If you have an interest in guitars then there will be plenty in this book to entertain you. The maintenance section is particularly useful – with everything you need to start maintaining your own guitar rather than paying someone else to do it! I actually discovered that I had been stringing my guitar incorrectly for the last 10 years – I would tie up the slack straight onto the tuning head, which it describes as bad practice. That is just one example of many tips and tricks the section includes. It goes into real depth, covering many different types of guitar and setup.

The Play Guitar section is excellent too, covering a wide variety of styles and including useful and concise information to get you started playing in a new style, or rounding off your existing abilities.

The sound and construction, amps and effects and guitar manufacturers are for those who want to know more than just how to play. To me, all of the information there is very interesting and is well laid out and described – generally in chronological order.

Having said that, not everyone is interested in the detail. If you’re not then this book should still be of use (and great value!) as the first two sections discussed above really make this book great value for money. The informative sections are a bonus for those interested.

Whether a newbie or an experienced, knowledgeable, player I think there will be something in here for you. I would recommend this book to any guitar player as a great reference and really interesting read.

My own copy of this book gets referred to on an almost daily basis, it’s well worth the low price!

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