Play Acoustic Guitar: Getting Started: Guitar Book & DVD

Honest and encouraging. This material respects that you're a beginner but doesn't slow down artificially or avoid real technique. You'll feel competent building actual chord progressions and picking simple melodies, not just playing disconnected drills.

Beginning acoustic guitarists who learn better with visual instruction alongside written explanations. Whether you're starting solo or as part of a band, the book and DVD combination gives you both a reference to return to and a model to watch repeatedly.

• Spend time with the DVD before picking up the guitar. Watching Mazer's hand placement and finger angles gives you a concrete model to replicate when you practice.
• Work through the open chords slowly and hold each one for several seconds. Clean transitions come from muscle memory, not speed.
• Apply the strumming patterns to songs you already know. This connects the mechanics to real music faster than playing exercise progressions.
• Practice the chromatic scale daily in short bursts. It trains your fingers to move systematically across the neck and prepares you to learn any scale pattern.

Use this as a foundational resource for students entering a school guitar program or for private students starting acoustic guitar for the first time. The combination of book and video makes it ideal for self-directed practice between lessons, giving students concrete material to return to when they forget what you showed them.

• Open chord shapes and transitions between chords
• Chord progressions and harmonic function
• Rhythmic strumming patterns using quarter and eighth notes
• Bass-note strum technique
• Chromatic scale and major scale construction
• Single-note melodic picking with alternate picking technique
• Hand position and posture for acoustic guitar