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Rock Guitar For Dummies

Front Cover
3 Reviews
John Wiley & Sons, Apr 18, 2011 - Music - 384 pages
Face it, being a rock guitarist is just about the coolest thing you can be – next to a secret agent with a black belt in karate. But even if you were a butt-kicking international person of mystery, playing rock guitar would still be cooler because it involves art, passion, power, poetry, and the ability to move an audience of listeners. Whether "moving your listeners" means mowing down crowd surfers with your power chords or making the audience cry with your sensitive melodies, no other musical instrument allows you so much versatility. 

Whatever rocks your world, Rock Guitar For Dummies can help you bring that message out through your fingers and onto that electric guitar that's slung over your shoulder. If you're a beginner, you'll discover what you need to know to start playing immediately, without drowning in complicated music theory. If you've been playing for a while, you can pick up some tips to help improve your playing and move to the next level.

Here's a sampling of the topics covered in Rock Guitar For Dummies:

  • How electric guitars and amplifiers work
  • Choosing the right guitar and amp for you, and how to care for them

  • Left-hand and right-hand guitar techniques

  • The different styles of rock guitar playing
  • Creating great riffs
  • The history of rock guitar
  • Buying accessories for your new toy
  • Top Ten lists of the guitarists you should listen to, the rock albums you must have, and the classic guitars you should know about

Rock Guitar For Dummies also comes with a CD that includes audio of every example shown in the book, plus play-along tracks with a band.

So, if you consider yourself an air guitar virtuoso and would like to try the real thing, Rock Guitar For Dummies can help you on your way to becoming an accomplished guitarist.

Note: CD-ROM/DVD and other supplementary materials are not included as part of eBook file.

  

What people are saying - Write a review

Review: Rock Guitar for Dummies [With CD-ROM]

User Review  - Jenn - Goodreads

Because I need all the help I can get. Read full review

Review: Rock Guitar for Dummies [With CD-ROM]

User Review  - Bobby - Goodreads

There are much better step-by-step guides online. Read full review

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Contents

Introduction
About This Book
NotSoFoolish Assumptions
Conventions Used in This Book
How This Book Is Organized
So You Wanna Be a RockandRoll Star
Beyond the Basics Sounding Like a Rock and Roller
Becoming a Gearhead
Putting the five positions into play
Chapter 9
Bringing Down the Hammerons
Having Pull with Pulloffs
Slippin into Slides
Bending to Your Will
Bend and release
Prebend

Appendix
Icons Used in This Book
Where to Go from Here
Part I
Chapter 1
Differentiating Between Rock and Acoustic Guitar It Aint Just Volume
Sound quality or timbre
Signal
Distortion and sustain
Oh yes and volume
Listening examples
The Power Trio
The electric guitar
The amplifier
Effects
Getting a Grasp on How Electric Guitars Work
String vibration and pitch
Your hands
Pickups and amplification
Accessorizing Your Guitar
Picks
Straps
Cords
Chapter 2
Getting a Hold of the Guitar
Sitting position
Standing position
Forming a LeftHand Position
Fretting
Getting some action
Striking a RightHand Position
Playing with a pick
Using your fingers
Electric Tuners
What they are
Not Enough to Hurt
Reading rhythm slashes
Reading tablature
How to Play a Chord
Fingering a chord
Strumming a chord
Chapter 3
Discovering How Amps Work
Following the Signal Chain
Preamp
Tone controls
Effects
Power amp
Taking a Guided Tour of the Amp
The Control Panel
Preamp and power amp controls
Tone controls
Amp effects
Making a Graceful Exit
Speaker out
Direct out
Power amp in
Various other holes
Plugging In and Turning On
Safety first
The sixstep program
Getting a Sound
Setting the controls
Channel switching
Making Do If You Dont Have an Amp
Plugging into a home stereo or boom box
Headphone amps
Demystifying the Gizmology
Part II
Chapter 4
You Gotta Have Chords
Playing Openposition Chords
Putting Power Chords into Play
Moving power chords
Pulling the power together
Getting Behind the Barre
Getting a grip on barre chords
Playing Ebased barre chords
Moving the Eform barre chord around the neck
Minor dominant 7 minor 7 and 7sus
Playing Abased barre chords
Moving the Aform barre chord
Minor dominant 7 minor 7 7sus and major 7
Chapter 5
Strumming Along
Downstrokes
Upstrokes
Combining downstrokes and upstrokes
Mixing Single Notes and Strums
Boomchick
Moving bass line
Syncopated Strumming
Dots and ties
Playing syncopated figures
Giving Your Left Hand a Break
Lefthand muting
Suppressing the Right Hand
Lefthand Movement within a Righthand Strum
Giving Your Fingers Some Style
Getting Into Rhythm Styles
Straightfour feel
16feel
Heavy metal gallop
Three feel
Chapter 6
Taking the Lead
Holding the Pick
Attacking the Problem
Striking the Downs and Ups of Lead Playing
Playing Single Notes
Singlenote technique
Alternate picking in downstrokes and upstrokes
Playing melodies across strings
Skips
LowNote Melodies
HighNote Melodies
Open position
Moveable or closed position
Getting in Tune with Lower Register Riffs
The Pentatonic Scale
Three Ways to Solo
Pentatonics over a Major key
Pentatonics over a minor key
Improvising Leads
Chapter 7
Basic Riffs
Eighth and quarternote riffs
16thnote riffs
Eighthnote syncopation
DoubleStops
Combining SingleNote Riffs and Chords
Discovering Your Own Style
Part III
Chapter 8
Going Up the Neck
Choking up on the neck
Playing doublestops on the move
Playing Closedposition Lead Patterns
Playing in Position
Positions defined
A firm position
Using the Moveable Pentatonic Scale
Staying at home position
Going above home position
Dropping below home position
Moving between positions
Seeking Out the Five Positions of the Pentatonic Scale
Changing Your Position
From the depths to the heights
Knowing Where to Play
Placing positions
Sounding a Vibrato That Makes You Quiver
Adding Spice Through Harmonics
Passing the Bar Exam
Putting It All Together
Part IV
Chapter 10
It Dont Mean a Thang If It Aint Got That Twang
Bo Diddley
Buddy Holly
Bringing DooWop Up Front
128
Straighteighth feel
Shuffle
Rockabilly Rhythm
Chuck Berry
Surfs Up
The British Are Coming The British Are Coming
The Beatles I Saw Her Standing There
Melodic riffing à la the Beatles
Low and highnote riffing
Chapter 11
Playing Advanced Riffs and Rhythm Figures
Riffbased rhythm figure
Chordbased rhythm figure
Classic Rock
The British Invasion
The Blues break through
Carlos Santana
Southern rock
Stevie Ray Vaughan
Aerosmith
The Eagles
U2s Guitarist Brings Epic Textures
Chapter 12
Bring on the Metal
Black Sabbaths skullcrushing riffs
Ritchie Blackmores baroque blast
The ArenaRock Era
KISS my axe
Bostons FMfriendly riffs
Van Halens sonic revolution
Angus Youngs barroom crunch
Introducing the EuroMetal Invasion
Heavy Metal Hits the 80s
Yngwie Malmsteen the Swedish speed demon
Metallicas thrashing riffs
Raging into the New Millennium
Dimebag Darrells speedmetal frenzy
Alice in Chains
Kornography
Chapter 13
Welcoming the First Wave of Progressive Rock
Steve Howes eclectic mastery
The spectral guitar of Genesis
Fripps trip
Pink Floyds space blues
Emerson Lake Palmer
Progressive Meets Heavy Metal
Into the limelight with Alex Lifeson of Rush
The riffs of Jethro Tull
Hitting the Charts with Jazz Rock
The soulful jazz of George Benson
Pat Methenys sophisticated jazzpop
Rock monster
Looking at the Legends of JazzRock Fusion
Jeff Becks jazz comeback
Part V
Chapter 14
Getting What You Want Out of a Guitar
Checking out the body
Testing the neck and fingerboard
Tuning into the hardware
Trying out the pickups and electronics
Deciding among guitar variations
Choosing the Perfect Amp to Give Your Guitar Life
Configurations and features
Key features
Putting It All Together
Chapter 15
Identifying Effects
Choosing an Effects Format
Stompboxes
Floormounted multieffects
Builtin effects
Overdrive Distortion and Fuzz
Overdrive
Distortion
Fuzz
Dynamic Effects
Gates
Tonebased Effects
Filters
Other Volume Effects
Tremolo
Modulation Effects
Chorus
Flanger
Phase shifterphaser
Pitch shifters and octave dividers
Ambient Effects
Delay or echo
Reverb
Designing a Signal Path
Pedalboards
Chapter 16
Using the Tools of the Trade
Power user tools
Changing Strings
Removing the old strings
Putting on the new strings
Cleaning the Parts of Your Guitar
The strings
The electronics
The Setup
Bridge spring tension
Fixing minor wiring problems
Repairing Amps and Effects
Cleaning and replacing the tubes
Troubleshooting Guide
Storing Your Guitar
Part VI
Chapter 17
Chuck Berry
Jimi Hendrix
Jeff Beck
Eddie Van Halen
Stevie Ray Vaughan
Steve Vai
Kurt Cobain
Chapter 18
The Beatles Rubber Soul 1965
The Jimi Hendrix Experience Are You Experienced? 1967
Led Zeppelin Led Zeppelin II 1969
The Rolling Stones Exile on Main Street 1972
Jeff Beck Blow by Blow 1975
Van Halen Van Halen 1978
Metallica Metallica The Black Album 1991
Korn Issues 1999
Chapter 19
Fender Telecaster
Fender Stratocaster
Gibson Flying V
Mosrite Ventures Model
Ibanez Iceman
Paul Reed Smith
Appendix
Relating the Text to the CD
Stereo separation
Tracks on the CD
Wiley Publishing Inc EndUser License Agreement
Copyright

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About the author (2011)

Jon Chappell is an award winning guitarist and has a master's degree in music composition. He has published over 20 method books and has performed with Grahan Nash, Judy Collins, and Pat Benetar.

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