If You Play Guitar, Get This Book

Fretboard Logic cures this disease, explaining quite literally
HOW TO PLAY THE GUITAR

I am a guitar newbie; I've only been playing about three weeks. However, in the week and a half or so since I got this book, it has vastly accelerated the pace of my learning. See, most books and videos (and teachers and friends) tell you to learn specific chords, then play them. Over and over. Then learn more chords and play them. Over and over. That common method - play this, play that - is like Ralph Macchio waxing the car in "The Karate Kid", except at the end of the day, instead of subliminally learning karate defenses, it turns out he just learned to wax a car really well.

Fretboard Logic cures this disease, explaining quite literally HOW TO PLAY THE GUITAR. That means you learn why the open position chords are where they are, where they are further up the neck, how all these chords up and down the neck relate, and how scales relate to all these patterns. Though it's allot to digest, there is virtually nothing in Bill Edwards teaching that has to be learned by rote. There are only a few key seeds, and the world of guitar playing blossoms from there.

So Fretboard Logic cures the syndrome of learning to play by playing this here and that there. You can learn to play up and down the neck. Naturally, now that I have a majority of the concept down, I still have to practice, but at least I'm not practicing blind. I now know where I'm going, and I'm moving along at a pace that baffles many self-taught guitarists that I know. They simply went the long way around.

Some reviewers seem to be suggesting that Fretboard Logic teaches Bill Edwards's way of playing. This is not true. Fretboard Logic isn't about how Bill Edwards sees the guitar; it's about how the guitar is actually, factually organized. So the reader can feel safe that he is not joining some kind of cult when learning these concepts.

A word of warning. I would recommend at least a basic knowledge of theory before picking up this book. At the very least, pick up "The Complete Idiot's Guide" on the subject and give it a read. Additionally, learning all the notes on the fretboard really seems necessary now that I've gotten into Fretboard Logic.

In closing, I think Bill Edward's way, which is less an invention and more a startling observation about the instrument in question, is the way everyone should learn to play guitar. This way provides structure from the beginning that one can see and start forming a mental picture of the guitar immediately rather than after years of random practice. There's no need to wallow in ignorance when you can just read this book and know.

Reviewer: Hollywoody (Burbank, CA USA) August 26, 2005