Hal Leonard’s Guitar Method: The Complete Edition, Books and CDs 1, 2 and 3

Book Review: Hal Leonard’s Guitar Method – Complete Books & CD Edition 1, 2 & 3 by Will Schmid

Advantage:

  • The backing tracks on this one are complete collections and the sound is perfect. Playing along with the practice tracks is fun, but make sure you stay focused so you don’t lose your own styles.
  • The lessons contained in it are all relevant to today’s music and this also makes them much more interesting.
  • A minor point for many of you, but important in the case of guitar books, is that this one contains no typos.

Cons

  • Perhaps one of the biggest negatives of the book is the fact that in Book 1, the methods seem to be losing their organization and paying less attention to some important concepts.
  • The tabs have been a bit exaggerated. Once they are introduced, it seems that the book contains too many tabs and this often becomes a problem for people who want to learn to read musical notes.
  • There are advanced concepts that are touched on in the book and as a guitarist you will realize that it is important to have a teacher for such advanced techniques.

Mel Bay Guitar Method Grade 1:

advantage

  • The organization of this book is fantastic as each lesson builds on the previous one.
  • The book is also very useful for learning to read musical notes or reading music.
  • Each technique is described in detail and deepened in order to learn them correctly.

Cons

  • The selection of songs on the discs that come with the book are not suitable for playing and make CDs quite boring very often.
  • Also, the recording of backing tracks on CDs is burned cheaply, making it less useful for beginners.
  • As mentioned above, the lack of typos should be important and this book has several typos that again make it difficult for beginners.

Hal Leonard’s is the best product overall, but Mel Bay’s is better for learning to read music.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *