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How often has that question been asked? Can guitar learning books teach you to play? It's an impossible question to answer, really, because while guitar books can help a lot of people to play the guitar, a few seem to learn fine without them. They just 'pick it up' and play by ear; and while that is fine for them, keep in mind that just as many pick up bad habits that prevent them from playing to their best potential.

A guitar learning book might not teach you to play like Jimi Hendrix, but then nothing will; and at least the book will teach you to play and it will teach you to play the right way. An important aspect of playing a guitar is knowing how to hold the instrument properly and how to get your fingering right. Get these aspects safely out of the way and you can then work on your sound.

That involves the use of individual notes and how the strings differ, note combinations or chords, keys and tabulation. If you are just playing by ear, you probably won't need to understand Tab; but you will never truly be a proper guitar musician if you can't pick up a tab sheet and play it right off. Many might disagree with that, but there is a world of difference between a musician and a player.

A guitar book can teach you to be a musician by learning the concepts of guitar playing, how the notes are formed and the best way to finger the strings to get the best note and tone. The chords themselves have to be learned - at the least the common chords, and many guitar solos are done using chords rather than ultra-fast finger work. Talking of solos, that's what a guitar book will not teach you: how to do a guitar solo. You only get that from watching others do it and copying what they do. After that it's practice, practice, practice.

What guitar learning books will teach you to do is to put a name to the chords you learn to play, so that when you have to play a G you know how to do it, and then how to change to a C or an F or simple little E. By learning the finger placements for the chords, then you will be able to strum without thinking what comes next. With experience you will be able to match the right chord to the tune without having to read it. However, you will initially have to learn the chords from a book.

You will also be taught the concept of keys and how the different keys are really just the same things in disguise. Scales help you to understand the way that keys and tones change the way that music is played; and although this kind of theoretical music might seem unnecessary for you, it sure helps you to improvise without making your music sound discordant.

A good guitar book will come with a DVD or CD that lets you hear how the notes should sound, and also what the exercises you are working on should sound like. It should also provide you with backing tracks that you can play along to, and it should demonstrate exactly what you should be doing to play correctly. By providing you with an audible lesson, rather than only written instructions, guitar learning books can teach you to play the guitar the correct way, and not the way that most learn: by ear.

True, there are many great guitarists who just picked up the instrument and started strumming it and then picking out a few notes. That led them to fame, but how many of these players are around? Very few, and your best way to learn is not to try to be Jimi Hendrix or Eric Clapton or Peter Green, but to be you and to play your way. The best way to achieve that is to learn the basics, and that is where guitar learning books come in. They can teach you to be you.

To be you and to play like you, by showing you how to use your instrument properly: how to hold it, strum it, pick it, learn the keys and chords you need and everything else previously mentioned, so that you have the tools at your disposal to make your own music by playing a guitar as it should be played.

So, can guitar books teach you to play? You bet they can!

Keywords: learn guitar

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Andre Sanchez,