Book Description

Sight reading is the single largest barrier for most guitarists in the ability to engage with countless compositions and arrangements. This book is the culmination of over a decade of experimenting with getting people to sight read fluently on the guitar. The biggest challenge to any sight reading endeavor is to have immediate access to where the note is on the guitar at any given position. The exercises presented in this volume are a direct outgrowth of this problem in trying to systematically organize a solution. There are 130 practice sheets for sight reading. These practice sheets begin in open position and continue through twelfth position. Taking into account practicing all twelve keys, this amounts to 1,560 possible exercises based on key. If you did one a day it would take over 4 years to play them all. That's a lot of sight reading and a lot of getting to know your fretboard! You will not find any information on beginning to read notes on the guitar. This book takes for granted that you can find where basic notes exist on the instrument and locate them with the corresponding position on the musical staff. You will also find that there are no time signatures, key signatures, or rhythms given. This will be discussed further in the book with the explanation of how to approach practicing these exercises. These exercises have been tested with a variety of different students who play many different genres over the past decade. Even my oldest "guinea pig" who is almost 90 has attested to their benefit. My hope is that you find this as a lifelong aid in the quest to become as proficient a guitarist as possible and run out of excuses for being a poor sight reader. This book seeks to fill the note reading gap for classical, jazz, rock, and any other guitarist looking to hone their sight reading skills.