Total Rock Guitar: A Complete Guide to Learning Rock Guitar - Book/Online Audio

I have some guitar experience, so this book was good for me. However, it could be difficult for complete beginners as it doesn’t explain a lot.

I have been playing acoustic for a long time (20yrs), I self taught myself when I was a teen and have been playing rhythm guitar all these years. I look up music and play chords to the songs. I don't practice lots of theory even though I do understand lots of it. Well about a year ago I decided to buy an electric and start playing. Unfortunately my method of playing traditional chords does not work well with electric and I'm forced to learn electric playing technics. I bought this book as a way to create a pathway for me to learn. I have picked up tips and lessons on youtube but its just gives me bits and pieces that I would have to put together with no structure. This book to me seams like a good method for the guitarist that is already confortable playing but wants to learn technics that will help them advance in their electric playing. Unfortunately with me it was though to find material or classes because I'm not a beginer guitarist and have specific goals in mind. My goal is to learn some of the technics and styles needed to play electric and be able to jam and do basic solos. I would not recomend this book if you are totaly new at guitar as the progress would be slow and fustrating. If you are like me and want to move from acoustic playing and get into some rock playing, I think this book is great. Please keep in mind that I have only owned this book for 2 weeks and with my limited practice time I am mastering lesson 1 and moving to lesson 2. The CD that came with the book is easy to follow and play along and the songs are unique. Each track is recorded with Rythym outputting from one channel and the lead from the other (R and L), this allows you to adjust the balance of your output so you can get more lead or rythym based on the setting of your Right and Left balance control. I ripped the CD to my computer so I can have access to the files on my computer and Phone and have them on the go for practice. Your PC and audio player should have the option to change balance. For win7/8 you have to do the following:Click on Start and then control panel.Open the option of Sound and in the tab of playback click on the windows displaying speakers. This enables the button properties, click on it.This opens new window as Speakers properties, here click on the tab Levels.Now click on the button Balance in front of the speaker volume bar.This will open another small window of Balance. Here you may adjust the balance between the left and right speakers as per requirement.Hope this review will help you make the right choice. Enjoy!!!

I agree with others that this is not for beginners, however, if you can do a few chords and know your minor pentatonic scales, then you should be able to work thru this book. It will be well worth your time and effort. You won't find any "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" (no ofense to Mr. Mozart implied)or the like in this book. Here's what you will find:Chords - power, open and some barreScales (yes scales are cool!) and how to use themlots of techniques like palm mutting, string bending, vibrato, harmonics, slides and othersEven a bit about getting the right sound, though, I think this is kind of a no-brainer, but could be useful to some.All of these lessons are then applied to some very cool (maybe a bit dated)songs. When I say dated, I mean as in 80' and 90's not 1960's. ;) I usually hate the CD's that come with books, but this one is pretty good!If you want to learn to rock this is the place to start. I have tons of books I've collected over the years and this is one of the best. Want something heavier? Check out his Metal Method books. While you can work through this on your own, it's always best to have a good guitar teacher. Most of all have fun and rock on!

I think this is a revolutionary approach to guitar teaching that is really fun and keeps you coming back to practice. The appeal is probably in the songs - they rock! There are NO exercises that you play along to, just the original music. The songs are so good, I'm tempted to pop them on my ipod to rock withOUT playing along on my guitar.The book also does a great job of gradually increasing difficulty from song to song. Many have said that this book is for intermediate players, but it only starts out that way (don't buy this book if you are a beginner). The last few songs are rather difficult, and I would NOT call someone who could play them flawlessly an "intermediate guitar player". They're pretty tough.By far, the most satisfying result of going through this course was accumulating many different guitar distortion/effect patches to match the particular genres in the book. Stetina gives good advice for building awesome guitar sounds, which is all too rare in instructional books.If you want to get better at rockin' then this is probably one of the best buys you can make.

Total Rock Guitar: Great book, offering a nice overview of a variety of rock styles. The songs are great and follow a nice progression in difficulty. My only suggestion is that I would have preferred that the whole solos would have been included at a slower tempo, not only the main licks. I also feel that the theory discussions before the songs are to brief, and I feel that Troy Stetina assumes that you have some understanding of music theory and many music concepts are presume to be understood. For example, in the first lesson a Fourth is define as "the music interval or distance, of four scales steps", so you better know already about music intervals within a scale. In other words, if a have not read "Music Principles for the Skeptical Guitarist" by Bruce Emery before buying Total Rock Guitar I would have been somewhat lost in various lessons. However, this is the best rock guitar book I have ever used, and you will be playing great rhythm parts and solos in just a few lessons. I highly recommended this book.

I agree that this book is very clearly written and concise, and quickly allows you to play, as opposed to make repetitive exercises.I have been playing for two years now, and I have several books (among which the excellent "for dummies" which I recommend), I try to practice every day for about 1 hour, and I feel this books is helping me making progress.However ... do not expect miracles. One has to play, play, play, and play again.Also, the exercises may seem quite difficult when compared to the level of the lessons they are associated with (this has been noted by another reviewer). It may be frustrating, already at lesson one (dyad power chords - the easiest!) to struggle to get the first exercise done properly. However, when you make, this is actually a simple but great power chords song!As I said, practice is the key

Great cover picture makes it look so easy just strap on guitar and crank the amp up to number 11, however back to real world this book and CD is quiet well presented and covers basics upwards, I have been playing guitar for long time and got the book as a handy ref, in my opinion the book is not really suitable for beginners unless learning with guitar teacher or instructor.The book is A4 size with CD, the pages have tab notation, text is not to smal, it is never easy buying a music book on line best to see one in music store first to see if it is suitable and then order copy from Amazon.

Rock tab! Not my strong suit but anyone who wants to get on with this aspect of guitar playing will find a lot to enjoy! There are always things to be found in any "how to" book that will iron out a few wrinkles in everyone's technique and help progress so from that point of view this is a useful addition to the guitar player's library

Troy manages to make learning the guitar fun, something which most other books fail to do. The tunes that you learn cover many different styles of Rock and they all sound good, so good that I've taped them so that I can listen them in the car. Not sure if it has quite enough for total beginners though. All in all a great book and one that you'll keep returning to time and time again.

I bought this for my son is very into music especially rock music. He has a guitar lesson once a week but now he can practise all he likes with the CD and book. He says it is very good and has used it quite a lot since Christmas. Helps him alot with his guitar playing.