Hal Leonard Guitar Method, Complete Edition: Books & CD's 1, 2 and 3

This book is reasonably priced and good for beginners in general. The only thing I found to be lacking is the short number of songs which go with each "lesson plan". It seems that by page 25, you are expected to play at an intermediate/pro level. To me, I would have preferred that the author included several more practice songs at each level of progression. Also, with the CD they have songs at a slow pace, and then a fast pace. Well, the slow version is easy to learn to play along with, but then the fast versions seem almost impossible to keep up with. Again, this book is very good and I recommend it. The only way to have made it better would to have been to include more practice songs at each level of progression. Best of luck, and remember this: learning to play the guitar is very difficult and requires time and patience. If you think you will play like Jimi Hendrix in 2 weeks, then think again and just keep playing those stupid video games.

Never played a guitar in my life, but after 3 days I was reading music and by the end of the first week, playing 3 strings. It's a great book for the beginner, even if you're only 50!

Its red,who doesnt want to own a red book!

but seriously:
downs:
has tab
information saturated compared to qty of music material
the 4,5,6 strings are basically glossed over yet any student i teach needs this in qty, especially ledger line notes
slow and fast versions of a track are on 1 track number

ups:
the backing tracks,they rate!
amount of information presented
the binding is spiral!no more fantasy where publishers dont expect the books to be opened

summary
any teacher of young students will need the easy pop melodies and easy pop rhythms series to complement this (or other stuff).
this book is a lot less value without the cd's,rather minimal on its own,the written musical material doesn't give much joy.
why does it have tab? why does the guitar student continue to be treated like a special citizen.get rid of it.
throwing in some pictorial reminders of left hand techniques and other things like this would make a huge difference, even more so to anyone attempting this book on their own.
and the chords begin in a strange manner: c & g7,practise the 1 finger version then do the real one.its a big step using those chords as examples, especially when the bass notes of those chords have not been dealt with yet.

A very good primer for the beginning guitar student. Well written and easy to understand.

My teacher recommended me to go for this book and i dont regret my decision of buying it. I wanted a book for learning chords. This book has everything i wanted. The CDS that come with the book are damn useful. There are lots of songs that put the beginner guitarist's skills to test. 3 book in one package is a sweet deal. I'm sure i will spend lot of months trying to master the songs in this book.
The song selection is also great. Starts of easy and then turns the heat up after few songs so it keeps the reader interested and also coming back for more.
The chord exercises are great and i'm making good progress playing them.

If you are a beginner and want to learn some good tricks quickly go for this book.