I started off with learning classical guitar about 15 years ago. Took lessons for about 3 years and was half decent at it. I could read notes, follow scores and stuff but I came up to a wall because nobody taught me what to do with the skills and the techniques.
In recent years I've picked up some music theory books to try to get the lowdown on how everything worked and hopefully make some music. They all made sense at the analytical level but none of the books I had talked about how to apply it.
Sigh. Then I prayed for a "magic bullet" book of all books that would solve it all for me.
PlaneTalk certainly comes very very close. Many have said this before and I'd like to reiterate it. Kirk has captured an excellent method for keeping track of music on the fretboard of a guitar and has intertwined this with enough of the relevant music theory such that music is no longer black magic, accessible only to those with "feel" and "talent". Fantastic instructional design on top of an excellent method.
Having said that, I'm still at the stage where lots of practice is required to get things ingrained. Seeing things in this new light certainly takes some getting used to. But now, I can confidently say that I am beginning to play music whereas before, I was just another mechanical robot trying to bang out notes as accurately as I could without knowing what the heck I was doing.
Most of all, it has been Kirk's excellent support and responsiveness on the forums. There will always be questions with new found abilities. He has passion for what he does and I don't think you can buy that with any amount of money.
shaowen
The title says it all!
