Reviews for Classic Guitar Method, Vol. 1

The average rating for Classic Guitar Method, Vol. 1 based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2020-12-15 00:00:00 Alan Taft Tah-dah! About 7 months after starting this method, I've worked through every exercise and song in the book. And am I better for it? Yes. Although, on bad practice days, I char the air with curse words and wonder, "Will I ever learn this fucking instrument!" But, the short answer is that the Classical Guitar Method, Volume 1 by Mel Bay, though not the most popular method out there, has been of tremendous benefit in teaching my fumbling fingers the basics. As noted, there are more popular methods including that of Julio Sagreras, which I'm also using, and others by Christopher Parkening and Scott Tennant. I picked up this method because I've used Mel Bay books to teach myself other instruments. I started my classical guitar journey in the beginning of 2020. Covid wasn't happening yet, but once it did, having a new obsession was a great sanity preserver. The Mel Bay method is a solid introduction to Classical Guitar for guitar noobs, like myself, and also for those with no previous musical experience. Note reading is introduced slowly, along with the basics of classical guitar, hand position, left and right hand finger nomenclature, etc. The exercises are either original to the book or modified works from other guitar masters such as Carulli, Sor, and Aguado. There are, mercifully, none of the insufferable beginner tunes like "Lightly Row" or "Go Tell Aunt Rhody." Progressing through the book, I encountered more and more finger-twisty exercises, which, while sometimes frustrating, did improve my playing ability. This book doesn't give much guidance, however, in playing musically, probably because most beginner books ignore that aspect. There's a brief mention of dynamics, but little explanation of right hand technique. Toward the latter third, left hand finger combinations are introduced with no suggested fingerings. Or the correct fingering are explained a couple pages later in another tune. Which, for self taught students, requires a certain degree of willingness to puzzle things out. That said...there's a wealth of information available online, especially on YouTube, to supplement any method book. All in all, I enjoyed this book and will continue to use it both as a warmup and to refine some of the later tunes in the book. On to Volume II.

Review # 2 was written on 2015-11-16 00:00:00 Nathan Butterfield "Jargon freezes over the substance of thinking, entrapping it in a complexity that is as distracting as it is unproductive," says Gary Peters. At times, I wish he had directed his own insight back at his text. A book with some tremendously interesting and illuminating ideas about improvisation, but often needlessly mucked-up by dense "academic" language that serves to obscure what he's trying to impart to the reader. Some problems may simply be the result of butting up against the limits of language, but constructions like "to keep the working of the work working (through the decisive interruption of the formation of a work)" can make for hard, slow going. I'd say having a prior acquaintance with Heidegger, Benjamin, and Nietzsche would probably make this easier to jump into.