FASTFORWARD: LEAD GUITAR LICKS

Rating:
Summary: Best of breed for beginners
Review: I bought about 8 beginning rock guitar books from Amazon, and this is the best.

Several books include CDs, but this one got it right. Plays a lick for you, then gives backing for you to play it. Short and to the point, makes it easy to move from one lesson to the next.

Licks are great, the kind of sound that I like anyway- and leaves me quite impressed with my own progress. Took me about one month from start to finish, and I was really amazed how much I improved.

Author is obviously a skilled teacher, who writes to help students, not to show off.

Book only includes a touch of theory, focuses on learning fun stuff. Still I think to develop further I need additional help on understanding theory. He does introduce pentatonic scales, but doesn't explain much behind them or how to apply them. But that probably would have made the book too boring.

Highly recommended for beginners!

Rating:
Summary: Really Excellent!
Review: I bounced onto this page because I wanted to write a review. I've had this book for about a month. I'm a bass player originally, and am now moving over to guitar. Frankly, the content presentation (comprehensiveness and pacing) is just, well, excellent. I was surprised at my progress and how much I learned... and how good I sounded too. I think the book works best for those either just starting to learn lead guitar or those in an early intermediate stage. Also, the licks you'll be learning are straight ahead rock too, so you'll enjoy this book most if you like rock/rock 'n roll. Beyond that, I can only echo the comments in the Best of breed for beginners, November 8, 1998, post. They're right on target. In sum, I really felt like I got my money's worth with this book and, if you meet the criteria I note above, I think you will too.

Rating:
Summary: great second step
Review: I had worked my way through all of the basic notes in the first position, and most basic chords. With this basis, I was able to really enjoy working with this book. It is all played at a moderate pace. The play along band makes it a lot of fun. My son wants to get the "Killer Metal Lead Licks"by the same auther because he liked what he saw in this book so much.

Rating:
Summary: Great for teaching and self-teaching
Review: I use this book to teach rock licks and soloing. The instruction is clear and uses standard music notation and tab. Rooksby quickly teaches the basic techniques (pull-offs, hammer-ons, etc) with licks that are fun and sound cool. The licks are taught at a reasonable speed.

Comes with an accompanying CD that demonstrates the licks and gives you the opportunity to play along with back tracks.