I previously reviewed “Guitar Ad Lib by James Bryer” here. Although this book was released before Guitar Ad Lib, I believe that this book should be studied AFTER Guitar Ad Lib.
The book basically is an introduction to common guitar sounds and styles around the 1950s to the early 1970s. In a way, this book teaches ideas that can help aspiring players of that era play these styles.
The material is well organized and the pacing is friendly. Unlike some early era guitar instructional material, this material is playable and sounds good. It might be rather simplified compared to how some of these styles are played on album recordings, but it certainly gives a great starting point.
It’s almost like getting personalized private lesson handouts or notes rather than being a “method”, although the barre chord section is certainly taught with rock playing in mind (minor pentatonic scales over major barre chords).
All in all, this is an intriguing book that perhaps should have gotten more attention. It has a lot of good stuff inside it and I had fun working on it. If I was a teacher in the late 70s or early 80s, I believe I would have enjoyed teaching my students using this as one of the books.
Pros: Good musical material, well organized and just the right amount of material.
Cons: Not much information online surrounding the author and the book, at least up to the time I wrote this review.
TLDR: If you enjoy guitar method books, this particular book is a good one to check out especially because of the kinds of chord progressions and voicings taught.
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