One good opportunity to develop the skills of playing the guitar is learning the guitar from textbook. However there are many textbooks (in Estonian a dozen, but hundreds in English and Russian), and a lot of them are available our stores already. How to choose the right textbook and how many should one person have?

Textbooks can be devided into three categories: 1) textbooks for beginners, 2) textbooks devoted to a particular style, 3) technical textbooks. By choosing a suitable textbook you should think about which category of books do you need. The most complicated is the beginning and it is very important to find a textbook for beginners, which you would thoroughly understand and which seems appropriate for a progressive pace. Beginner‘s books may also be divided into a style, and although the theory is the same for the beginning of each style, however, the emphasis is different and has different music examples. Further the textbooks have divided into books for children and books for adults, and sometimes the author has not thought about it properly.

Everything is easier if you already have acquired the basics, because in this case a textbook does not have to provide everything for you, you should be able to think and analyze and exclude unnecessary. Then it makes sense to use a particular style of textbooks devoted to the rock, jazz, classical, flamenco, fingerstyle, blues, country, funk, metal etc. Each style has its jargon and its use in addition to various guitars and a very different „vocabulary“.

The books for technique development may also be universal or dedicated to a particular style. As for more specific style the book is as more oriented are exercises, so it may be easier to understand.

The topic of guitar textbooks is long and complicated, and I will continue it soon! In the meantime, look presentable Estonia‘s choice of guitar textbooks here.