This illustrated encyclopedia to acoustic guitars demonstrates their elegant beauty and which famous musicians favored which brands throughout the years.
The Art of Guitar Making
I was given my first guitar when I was in my mid teens but I didn’t really start playing it properly until I was in my early thirties and that was when I first started to look at how guitars are made.
I got accepted to study Stringed Instrument Making at Anniesland College in Glasgow (Scotland). During those 2 years I was given the opportunity to develop a greater understanding of the history, science, and practice of making musical instruments.
These 3 project books (gathered together here in this one volume) were written in the evenings while I was at college to help me with remembering the various processes I was learning each day and also to take note of any mistakes I made along the way.
Hope you enjoy reading them.
Rhythm Guitar Playing, Book 1
The Early Grades. An invaluable aid in preparing for the Registry of Guitar Tutors electric guitar exams. Preliminary Grade to Grade 2. An innovative and helpful book for all modern guitar players who want to improve their rhythm guitar playing.
The Guitar and its Music, From the Renaissance to the Classical Era
Following on from James Tyler’s The Early Guitar: A History and Handbook(OUP 1980) tthis collaboration with Paul Sparks (their previous book for OUP, The Early Mandolin, appeared in 1989), presents new ideas and research on the history and development of the guitar and its music from the Renaissance to the dawn of the Classical era.
Tyler’s systematic study of the two main guitar types found between about 1550 and 1750 focuses principally on what the sources of the music (published and manuscript) and the writings of contemporary theorists reveal about the nature of the instruments and their roles in the music making of the period.
The annotated lists of primary sources, previously published in The Early Guitar but now revised and expanded, constitute the most comprehensive bibliography of Baroque guitar music to date. His appendices of performance practice information should also prove indispensable to performers and scholars alike.
Paul Sparks also breaks new ground, offering an extensive study of a period in the guitar’s history—notably c.1759-c.1800—which the standard histories usually dismiss in a few short paragraphs. Far from being a dormant instrument at this time, the guitar is shown to have been central to music-making in France, Italy, the Iberian Peninsula, and South America.
Sparks provides a wealth of information about players, composers, instruments, and surviving compositions from this neglected but important period, and he examines how the five-course guitar gradually gave way to the six-string instrument, a process that occurred in very different ways (and at different times) in France, Italy, Spain, Germany, and Britain.
Electric Guitar Playing: Grade 6
Covers all the material needed for the RGT Grade Six electric guitar examination, enabling you to gain an internationally recognised qualification. The book should help you to develop all aspects of guitar playing, increase your knowledge of specialist electric guitar techniques, understand the music theory that relates to electric guitar playing and achieve your full potential as a guitarist.
Electric Guitar Playing: Grade 1
Ideal for beginners and those in the early stages of learning to play guitar. This book is part of an acclaimed series by the Registry of Guitar Tutors. This book covers all the material needed for the Registry of Guitar Tutors Grade One electric guitar examination, enabling you to gain an internationally recognized qualification.
The material covered includes: open and fretted scales; 15 open position chords; exercises to use the chords with chord charts and use the scales for lead playing; full details of spoken tests on the anatomy of the guitar and musical knowledge; examples of aural assessments to develop your ear for music.
Whether or not you are interesting in taking an RGT exam, studying this course will help you to achieve your full potential as a guitarist by developing all aspects of your guitar playing, increasing your knowledge of specialist electric guitar techniques and improving your understanding of the music theory that relates to electric guitar playing.
Electric Guitar Playing: Grade 7
Covers all the material needed for the RGT Grade Seven electric guitar examination, enabling you to gain an internationally recognised qualification. The book should help you to develop all aspects of guitar playing, increase your knowledge of specialist electric guitar techniques, understand the music theory that relates to electric guitar playing and achieve your full potential as a guitarist.
Engineering the Guitar, Theory and Practice
Engineering the Guitar: Theory and Practice uniquely describes the mechanics of the guitar for engineers and craftsmen alike. Complete with informative illustrations, this popular musical volume describes the underlying mechanical concepts behind the guitar, supported by theory and test.
A detailed description of guitar electronics paired with an analysis of sound quality appeals to scientific audiences as well as musicians technically apt. Readers will gain an understanding of the technical behavior of the instrument with respect to structural and component dynamics, in addition to the informative treatment of analytical models.
Hand made and mass produced techniques are also examined in a chapter devoted to manufacturing processes. Audiences interested in mechanics, acoustics, and instrument making will find Engineering the Guitar: Theory and Practice an informative and enjoyable read.
The Fender Stratocaster, The Life and Times of the World’s Greatest Guitar and Its Players
A history of the iconic guitar from its creation through its numerous variations to the twenty-first century, with profiles of some of its greatest players. The Fender Stratocaster just may be the ultimate guitar.
Curvaceous and stylish. Anatomically perfect for playing. Three pickups and a whammy bar. Tone to die for. And somewhere along the way, it changed the world of music. In the hands of players from Eldon Shamblin to Stevie Ray Vaughan, Ike Turner to Jimi Hendrix, Buddy Guy to Eric Clapton, the Stratocaster has been central to country, blues, punk, rock ‘n’ roll, even jazz.
Here is the complete story of this legendary guitar. Packed with more than seven hundred photos and memorabilia, plus profiles of the great Strat players, this book is the perfect tribute to the Stratocaster.
Dig in and feel the music.
