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Creative Guitar Books - first impressions can be so wrong!

 
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jonny guitar



Joined: 10 Nov 2004
Posts: 9

PostPosted: Tue Dec 07, 2004 8:00 pm    Post subject: Creative Guitar Books - first impressions can be so wrong! Reply with quote

Very Happy Got my books yesterday and a funny thing happened. I read the forward in book one and glanced quickly at the exercises. My immediate impressions of book one were: very informative opening remarks at the start of the book (got to get my highlighter out); the exercises are too easy and I should never NEVER buy book 1 of any guitar books. I have been screwed in the past with book ones that are just too easy. So I picked up book two and gave that a good glance and assured myself that it was a killer book that I had to play through right now.......

So, because it was handy I picked up my book one (which I figured I would sell to a beginner friend of mine) to do my warm-ups with. I have used a similar chromatic variation chart to warm up to for years so it was the same type of thing. WRONG!!!!! The variations that Guthrie has put in for the warm ups were amazing and I was tying my fingers up quite nicely. I spent 2 hours on the first couple of exercises exhausting all the variations and picking patterns, cataloging the difficult ones and grinning ear to ear the whole time. The next couple of excersise on finger independence were just as good.

I have played around 6 hours a day for a long time and today my hands are tired; first time in a long time that they felt like this. It is really hard to find good pratice material and I find that most books just give some examples with little explanation of the hows and whys so most books get used for a couple of months (at most) and then put on the shelf. Based on the first few exercises I will be using these two books for a long time.

Great tip of the hat to the forum for informing me about these great tools. Cost about the price of two lessons and contain a wealth of info and some damn funny parts too.
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alexkhan



Joined: 10 Sep 2004
Posts: 2783
Location: Chino, CA

PostPosted: Wed Dec 08, 2004 3:40 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Haven't gotten around to really working on the exercises of the books yet, but I'm sure Guthrie wouldn't have laid down stuff that we can find anywhere else. Very informative reading indeed! I wonder if he's working on anymore. Have you gone through Mick Goodrick's "The Advancing Guitarist" by any chance? Rather quirky book, but there's enough stuff on there to last several lifetimes of playing and practice.
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stratoskier



Joined: 24 Sep 2004
Posts: 82
Location: Bozeman Montana

PostPosted: Wed Dec 08, 2004 5:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yes, yes, yes: another believer in the Creative Guitar series!

It seems odd to me that they recently released "Creative Guitar 3" and apparently Guthrie has nothing to do with it (Phi Hilborne and Ace are credited as authors). I was hoping that at some time in the future, Guthrie would pen #3. (Not that he didn't already lay out enough to keep me busy for years).
Bert
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jonny guitar



Joined: 10 Nov 2004
Posts: 9

PostPosted: Wed Dec 08, 2004 5:14 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

alexkhan wrote:
Have you gone through Mick Goodrick's "The Advancing Guitarist" by any chance? Rather quirky book, but there's enough stuff on there to last several lifetimes of playing and practice.


I haven't seen that book yet but I will check it out. Thanks for the tip. I also just got the Andrew Green Jazz books, Jazz Techniques and Jazz Structures; between the four book I have enough for a while.
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alexkhan



Joined: 10 Sep 2004
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Location: Chino, CA

PostPosted: Sat Dec 11, 2004 5:11 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

That Mick Goodrick book takes more of a "Zen" approach to practicing your guitar and is quite thought-provoking. It's definitely not your standard "Well, here are the licks and the exercises" type of approach of so many instructional material out there. I think this book will teach you to take a very creative approach to your practice sessions as it will make you think hard about what you feel you need to practice.
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GuitarFred



Joined: 10 Oct 2004
Posts: 7
Location: Sweden

PostPosted: Sat Dec 11, 2004 11:23 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yup, those books are very good indeed!
Opened up many new doors to new ideas to my playing.

Guthrie is truly a genious
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dave...



Joined: 25 Oct 2004
Posts: 45

PostPosted: Mon Dec 13, 2004 6:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I bought CG2 yesterday and told myself i wouldn't go onto the next page till id mailed the exersises on the one before. Needless to say im not off ex.1.2 yet. Its one of those 'i can play it...just not that fast....' moments. Has anyone nailed what guthrie has called the 'more ambitious speeds' yet?
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jonny guitar



Joined: 10 Nov 2004
Posts: 9

PostPosted: Tue Dec 14, 2004 5:36 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

All right, I found something to complain about Mad Guthrie needs to enclose tablets of Ibupofen at the bottom of every second page to ward off tendonitis. I hate it when I practice too many hours and my picking elbow gets painful. Must stop practicing.....or maybe just practice the legato section for a couple of days Cool
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trelloskilos



Joined: 11 Sep 2004
Posts: 35

PostPosted: Thu Dec 16, 2004 4:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Another advocate of CG 1&2 here - I've several books for guitarists from beginner to advanced, but it's the combination of the excercises and the way that they're introduced and implemented that make them pretty much the first excercise books that I reach for.

Having said that, although CG #3 is written by Phil Hilbourne and Ace, I don't think that makes it any less of a book. Phil Hilbourne is another very respected and admired guitarist (again, from the county of Essex), and not only has been Guitar Techniques and Total Guitar editor, but also fills Brian May's boots for the Queen musical "We will Rock You". On top of that, Phil has published loads of books on guitar practice regimes and learning to play. In fact, one of his books was one of the first I ever bought when I started to teach myself guitar.

I don't know much about Ace, other than that he was in Skunk Anansie (a fine band), and has one of the best columns in "Guitarist" magazine - a must for all pedal whores Wink

It has to be said, that if someone was to write a 3rd series to Guth's excellent CG#1 & 2, I couldn't think of two better authors. Cool
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stratoskier



Joined: 24 Sep 2004
Posts: 82
Location: Bozeman Montana

PostPosted: Fri Dec 17, 2004 1:48 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Oh I didn't mean to imply that it wasn't a good book -- it undoubtedly is. I'm an admirer of Phil Hilbourne as well. I'll probably buy the book because it's a topic that I could use some coaching on. I just thought it odd that they used the same name (CG) since I thought Guthrie sort of "owned" that title. But maybe this will become a whole series of really progressive guitar books by respected authors on a wide assortment of topics -- that would also be a cool thing.
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frankus



Joined: 13 Sep 2004
Posts: 1100
Location: Chelmsford/Arachnipus

PostPosted: Fri Dec 17, 2004 9:58 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

William S Burroughs was supposed to have been writing the books originally but sadly he died before finishing them Sad

I've not read the 3rd installment, I've read lots of Phil's articles in Guitarist and Guitar Technique over the years, I prefer the second generation of Guitar Mag writers for their casual approach.

In the olden days of Guitarist technique features got a page or two at most for notation and there was no space for pleasantries.. these days Guthrie, Dave Humphies and Dave K all kinda wander into your living room chat away casually, putting their feet up on the coffee table, metaphorically speaking, in their articles...

Maybe I'm doing him a disservice.. I'll read it and work it out from there.. I remember a few notaries of the UK guitar scene grumbling about the amount of writing that Sanctuary Publishing demand in their books.. Wink
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macula56



Joined: 03 Jan 2005
Posts: 4

PostPosted: Wed Jan 12, 2005 10:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

where can one acquire these books?
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macula56



Joined: 03 Jan 2005
Posts: 4

PostPosted: Thu Jan 13, 2005 2:38 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

nevermind. i found them.
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