JustinGuitar Beginner’s Course – Acoustic and Electric Guitar | Step-by-Step Lessons and Exercises with Online Audio | Learn Chords, Scales, Fingerstyle, and Rhythm Techniques for New Players

I decided to pick up guitar as a creative hobby. My dream is to be able to just jam several nights a week to have some fun and relax after a day's work. I've been learning on my own for 1.5 years. Since I don't have the time to commit to lessons, I'd rather not waste the money, and am progressing at my own pace.Finding lessons for this style of learning wasn't easy (certainly for free). I started with the very short "Teach Yourself to Play Guitar: A Quick and Easy Introduction for Beginners", then moved on to "Guitar for Dummies". In my experience, they are not structured well for a progressing beginner and are missing beginner songs to practice your chords. I also spent countless hours (days?!) scouring the web for a good resource, but most fell short, as most offer subscription-based lessons. Youtube is also a great resource, but I quickly found that most channels focus on guitar gear, rather than music. And of course you get sucked into videos comparing cheap Les Pauls to shiny Les Pauls and stop practicing. Then I encoutered "Justin Guitar" videos, and realized Justin's all about the music. After watching a bit more, I realized he has created this mostly free resource to train people on guitar. I then discovered that he had written this beginner's course (and the separate beginner's songbook), and started it about 7 months ago (after struggling to progress for about a year). I have made much faster progress using this highly structured and simple course.Justin is very unique: he's such a friendly guy and has the most jovial demeanor. It's very evident in his videos and it even shines through in his book. I find that reading the text in this book feels like you're having a conversation with a really upbeat teacher, and his encouragement, even though it's not personalized, makes it rewarding to progress through the lessons. In my opinion, this book is the closest thing to having a guitar teacher without actually taking private lessons.The chapters are short and sweet. No long history of guitar, and no listing of best guitars or best artists. Justin keeps it brief and immediatly gets down to brass tacks. As you progress through the chapters, he sprinkles in information that will be useful to you when you are advanced enough for it. For example, tweaking your tremolo tension (if your guitar has one) is discussed midway through the book, and setting up your amp is discussed toward the end. Arguably, you don't need this information until you are advanced to that level.Each chapter has a lesson followed by a practice schedule. The lessons are short with the bulk of the emphasis on practice time. Lessons include many pictures to help guide your fingers. The book uses guitar tab notation, so you don't need to worry about reading music. Each practice session is supposed to take 30-45 mins to complete and covers warm-up exercises, chord practicing, chord switching, rhythm practicing and listening exercises, although the number of things you do in a session changes as you progress. I typically need 45 minutes to an hour to complete each practice session (I think Justin's estimates are a bit optimistic). The lessons progress logically with increasing difficulty building upon each other, rather than progressing by genre. My only criticism of the lessons is that often I don't know when to proceed to the next lesson; Should I have mastered the previous technique or just become very good at it? This is where private instruction would be helpful. Justin initially helps advise when to move forward, but I've found that you just have to use your own judgement. I think if you practice religiously, you can expect to complete 1 chapter every week or two.The book comes with 2 audio CDs with sound samples. These are incredibly useful. However, I couldn't find MP3/sound file equivalents, and was forced to find an old laptop that still had a CD drive in order to download the sound samples to my iPad for use during practice. It would be ideal if the publisher could make these MP3's available as downloadable files.My advice for a beginner:- Take Justin's course! It's by far the easiest course to begin and has the most structured lessons I've found out there.- Buy this book and read the introduction BEFORE getting your first guitar. Justin has some purchasing advice, and it's really quite helpful. He gives advice like buying a proper tuner and metronome, and suggests optimal beginner string gauge, pick thickness, etc. I wish I had started here before I bought my beginner gear.- Do not deviate from Justin's learning plan. I did this often before realizing I was getting ahead of myself and attempting music that was too complicated given my progress. Justin's course will get you where you want to go including power chords and scales, but you've got to nail the basics before attempting those. Be patient and don't jump ahead. As I've learned, it takes a long time to master guitar, so keep your playing time structured.- If you're going to complete this course, you must get Justin's beginner's songbook as well. It's critical to practice your learned chords and changes, and it's one of the best books out there as the songs advance in complexity along with your lessons and experience. The real benefit of the song book is you'll be able to play songs regardless of skill level - there's a song for each level of advancement.

I have been playing (very loose use of the word "playing" by the way) guitar for about 3 years and have a shelf full of beginner books. I finally gave up and paid for lessons for 2 years, so consider myself somewhat proficient but far from good. Even with lessons there was something missing in my jump to the next level...and that's where this book comes in. I tune into Justin's online videos every now and then, and soon realized I knew a lot about different things about playing but just couldn't connect the dots to get me to the level.So why a "beginner's" book? True, this book starts at the basics, as if the reader just bought their first guitar. And honestly I wish I had started here, Justin's methods are different than anything I've tried. The course doesn't just throw you into music theory (I can't read sheet music, and at age 42 I don't have time to learn a new language!), and it doesn't give you chord diagrams and expect you to know how to translate that into a song. The book does give you chord information but includes exercises to help establish familiarity with common chord changes - and more importantly how to make those changes with efficiency of movement. I combined this with Justin's Beginner's Songbook (highly recommend both books) which uses songs to reinforce the lessons the Beginner's Course. After a week of using both books my rhythm has improved and my chord changes have become smoother - the hardest part was breaking bad habits I had established before. The techniques in this book are top notch and the information is accessible to true beginners (and those without classical music training) - but it still takes practice! Buying the book alone won't make someone Jimmy Page, but with time and effort I progressed more than with any other system I tried.I'm not one for long reviews, but I spent a lot of money on other books and expensive lessons that got me nowhere (to be fair, a beginner can only get so far on half hour lessons once a week, and it's just not practical for some people to shell out hundreds of dollars a month on what amounts to a hobby). I'm planning on going back to lessons, but not before I've finished this course and the second course (I'm already sold on it just based on this book) so I have a firm base of knowledge and ability.

I've been following random Justin videos online for a month or so since I took up guitar (in my 60's). I started learning chords and playing with some strumming, but nothing in an organized way. I had seen videos of Justin playing an A chord with the index finger in the middle and couldn't for the life of me understand why since the standard fingering is so much easier. His book explains exactly why he does this and how anchoring the index finger to the third string allows you to switch easily to the E and D chords. I've gone from a 1-2 second transition to almost instantly. This hint alone makes the purchase price worth it! I can't wait for the next couple chapters.Justin is a great teacher who has one goal - get people to play guitar and more importantly stay with the learning and growing process.

I have been struggling, trying to play the guitar. I learned to play a few chords but never could play a song. This book is amazing how it draws you along at your pace. So far I'm very impressed. The reason I gave it 4 stars is that it is not spiral bound. If you want this spiraled go to Staples and they will cut off the binding and spiral bind it for $ 4.00 otherwise it's proven to be a great book for Me.

This is an awesome book for a beginner! I knew nothing about guitar playing when I started and this book walked me though the basics just like an in-person coach would, from how to hold the guitar, finger placement and how to read music. Pictures and illustrations are on point and easy to follow. Absolute must have for a beginner.

This is the best beginner's course that I've ever seen!

This is.a really good course that steps you through the basics of learning guitar to being a reasonably competent intermediate player. Like in his online courses, Justin Sandercoe explains everything well and in easy to understand steps. His reassurances of not to worry or get frustrated make you understand that everyone starts with the same problems and issues and to persevere. Comprehensive and well written.

This book was written by an honest and well structured minded author. Typically Anglo-Saxon. The author tells it as it is. A very motivating book. Check it out and you'll see what I mean. Justin is a guy you could trust your mistakes to. If you know what I mean. :-).

El libro ha llegado antes de la fecha prevista. Ya tengo varios libros de esta colección y sigo los videos del autor en su canal de youtube. El libro me parece perfecto.

I really enjoy the online courses and this book comes as complementary to those.