Complete Idiots Guide to Playing the Guitar

The guitar is a wonderfully versatile instrument. It is portable, needs no accompanist
because it provides harmony as well as melody, and has an intrinsically beautiful tone which
is sensitive to human touch. The higher levels of solo playing take time and practice, as
with any instrument, but the guitar can be a pleasure from the first day and the first
successful sounding of a chord.
I have deliberately departed from conventional teaching methods in this book to try to give
you a quick start at enjoyable music without too much theory. I have done this by relying on
the help of the tablature system an easy way to show where to place the fingers which avoids
some of the trickier aspects of standard notation such as sharps and flats.
This does not mean that these topics are bypassed. They're all there, but thanks to
tablature you don't have to hold back from playing interesting pieces while you learn the
fundamentals of music.