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Rating: 
Summary: I don't own a copy
Review: But is there any section that covers triads? 7ths and 9ths? More desciption is needed.teak@nyc.com
Rating:
Summary: Excellent learning material.
Review: I can't say enought positive things about this book/cd set. It introduces rhythm patterns and counts in an easily understandable format. It teaches styles applicable to all forms of guitar, including the common rhythms of jazz, country, ragae, and rock. The CD has helped my ability to follow complex rhythm and pick patters immensely. The CD is very user friendly. As an added bonus, I discovered the guitar track is on the right channel, so you can turn it off and play with the drum sequence. The ability to play with the drum tracks has helped my timing greatly and has been a great break from the metronome. The book explains as much theory as you need in order to understand what you are doing, but no more, which I really appreciated. Too many of the music books I have used previously either ignore theory totally or bog you down with it. For children, I would expect a 9 or 10 year old to be able to use this program well, so long as they know the basic chords and are able to make basic changes. I would recommend basic familiarity with chords before using this book. It provides diagrams of the chords but immediatly begins presenting rhythm patterns, so you should be familiar with the basic fingerings. This book was worth the money just for the alternate chord fingerings which facillitate rapid chord changes. This is a very general book, but the company puts out several geared to specific types of music, which I hope to progress to shortly.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent learning material.
Review: I can't say enought positive things about this book/cd set. It introduces rhythm patterns and counts in an easily understandable format. It teaches styles applicable to all forms of guitar, including the common rhythms of jazz, country, ragae, and rock. The CD has helped my ability to follow complex rhythm and pick patters immensely. The CD is very user friendly. As an added bonus, I discovered the guitar track is on the right channel, so you can turn it off and play with the drum sequence. The ability to play with the drum tracks has helped my timing greatly and has been a great break from the metronome. The book explains as much theory as you need in order to understand what you are doing, but no more, which I really appreciated. Too many of the music books I have used previously either ignore theory totally or bog you down with it. For children, I would expect a 9 or 10 year old to be able to use this program well, so long as they know the basic chords and are able to make basic changes. I would recommend basic familiarity with chords before using this book. It provides diagrams of the chords but immediatly begins presenting rhythm patterns, so you should be familiar with the basic fingerings. This book was worth the money just for the alternate chord fingerings which facillitate rapid chord changes. This is a very general book, but the company puts out several geared to specific types of music, which I hope to progress to shortly.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful Beginer to Advanced book
Review: I found Progressive Rhythm Guitar to be a helpful and very informative book. It is an excellent size book for the price and comes with a CD to demonstrate the examples in the book. The book is in lesson format so you can move at your own pace. The first section of the book deals with begginer players, basic chords, rhythms and progressions. The second part is more intermediate moving on the bar chords and advanced rhythms. The third section is for advanced players teaching moveable chord shapes, chord construction, and even more advanced rhythms. I found this book to be very useful to me when I started playing guitar and I've learned a whole lot from it.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful Beginer to Advanced book
Review: I found Progressive Rhythm Guitar to be a helpful and very informative book. It is an excellent size book for the price and comes with a CD to demonstrate the examples in the book. The book is in lesson format so you can move at your own pace. The first section of the book deals with begginer players, basic chords, rhythms and progressions. The second part is more intermediate moving on the bar chords and advanced rhythms. The third section is for advanced players teaching moveable chord shapes, chord construction, and even more advanced rhythms. I found this book to be very useful to me when I started playing guitar and I've learned a whole lot from it.
Rating: 
Summary: Really Solid Book
Review: I have been playing off and on for nearly ten years. I know a good deal of music theory, but not playing much it was mostly abstract and useless to me. This book provided a solid method of learning what I needed to become a more useful player when my true musician friends get together for a jam. The examples were good and quite entertaining. I have only two gripes: the CD is just awful. While the examples are good, the tiny, brash, unappealing guitar accompanied by Dr. Rhythm drums makes otherwise interesting progressions sound terrible. My second gripe is that there is no discussion of chord selection. The book presents two "turnarounds" and then significantly modifies them throughout the book without once explaining why or how.
Nonetheless, this is definitely one of the best "how-to" music books I've seen.
Rating:
Summary: Best Guitar Book I Own!
Review: I started learning guitar about 3 months back. I had a few of the Hal Leonard method books, and some other misc books I picked up. I didn't feel like they did a good job covering chords, so I picked this book up on a whim at a nearby music store. Hands down it's the best guitar book I own. The book has over 50 different lessons, and after a month or so, I'm about 1/4 of the way through it and getting better every day. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Best Guitar Book I Own!
Review: I started learning guitar about 3 months back. I had a few of the Hal Leonard method books, and some other misc books I picked up. I didn't feel like they did a good job covering chords, so I picked this book up on a whim at a nearby music store. Hands down it's the best guitar book I own. The book has over 50 different lessons, and after a month or so, I'm about 1/4 of the way through it and getting better every day. Highly recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: Express introduction to playing chords
Review: I used this book extensively when I first started to learn the guitar. The strength of this book is that it is a no-nonsense approach to learning open and movable chord positions, covering topics such as root-6 and root-5 chords, bass note picking, strumming techniques, and rhythmic timing. The downfall of this express approach to learning chords is that it may leave you in the dark as to how to construct chords. The most sensible way in my view to learning chords is to start by first of all learning the major scales and the cycles of fourths and fifths, then by covering major/minor/diminished/augmented triads (basic three-note chords), introducing 7ths/9ths/11ths/13ths and practicing chord voicing all over the fingerboard. This book assumes either you know about chord construction theory, or that you have a teacher or another book to explain these concepts. Others may feel otherwise, but I really don't think you can understand chords until you understand scales! It is a shame that this book doesn't address the issue. To the book's credit, there is a very handy chord-formula chart on page 134 that shows the notes of all the chords in the book. There are also a section of appendices that will also aid your understanding of basic theory. Most of the examples in the book are on the accompanying CD, which is handy for practicing. All in all this is a great book for beginners to intermediate players, however, if you are going to make a purchase, it may help to pick up Progressive Lead Guitar (by the same authors, also available at Amazon), which will help you come to grips with scales. You may also want to check out Jody Fisher's excellent Beginning Jazz Guitar, which although focuses heavily on Jazz, will teach you chord construction, scales, as well as improvisation.
Rating:
Summary: Express introduction to playing chords
Review: I used this book extensively when I first started to learn the guitar. The strength of this book is that it is a no-nonsense approach to learning open and movable chord positions, covering topics such as root-6 and root-5 chords, bass note picking, strumming techniques, and rhythmic timing. The downfall of this express approach to learning chords is that it may leave you in the dark as to how to construct chords. The most sensible way in my view to learning chords is to start by first of all learning the major scales and the cycles of fourths and fifths, then by covering major/minor/diminished/augmented triads (basic three-note chords), introducing 7ths/9ths/11ths/13ths and practicing chord voicing all over the fingerboard. This book assumes either you know about chord construction theory, or that you have a teacher or another book to explain these concepts. Others may feel otherwise, but I really don't think you can understand chords until you understand scales! It is a shame that this book doesn't address the issue. To the book's credit, there is a very handy chord-formula chart on page 134 that shows the notes of all the chords in the book. There are also a section of appendices that will also aid your understanding of basic theory. Most of the examples in the book are on the accompanying CD, which is handy for practicing. All in all this is a great book for beginners to intermediate players, however, if you are going to make a purchase, it may help to pick up Progressive Lead Guitar (by the same authors, also available at Amazon), which will help you come to grips with scales. You may also want to check out Jody Fisher's excellent Beginning Jazz Guitar, which although focuses heavily on Jazz, will teach you chord construction, scales, as well as improvisation.
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