A historical overview of the development of the acoustic guitar, with an illustrated directory of instruments, shown in 220 photographs.

A comprehensive guide to the guitar, with a practical playing manual and chord finder, a historical overview of the instrument and a visual directory of over 150 acoustic guitars, all shown in over 900 photographs and illustrations. ,

This is a book both for players of all levels, amateur to professional, as well as music enthusiasts, whatever their interest: classical, jazz, flamenco, blues, country, rock and pop. To please fans of music past or present hundreds of guitars are described in painstakingly researched detail, each presented in full-color photographs revealing the overall shape as well as the intriguing detail.

This illustrated encyclopedia to acoustic guitars demonstrates their elegant beauty and which famous musicians favored which brands throughout the years.

This beautiful book is a comprehensive guide to the new Golden Age of handcrafted acoustic guitars! Illustrated with full-color photos of custom instruments throughout, this rich resource also contains profiles of top luthiers, advice on buying a custom instrument, and an extensive directory with complete contact information for hundreds of makers. Encompassing steel-string flattops, nylon-strings, resonators and Hawaiians, archtops and more, Custom Guitars presents the history and current state of the art of guitar making. Includes an intro by Alex de Grassi.

These are the guitars so famous that their names are often household words: B. B. King's Lucille, Eric Clapton's Blackie, Stevie Ray Vaughan's First Wife, Billy F Gibbons' Pearly Gates, Neil Young's Old Black, and many more. Here's the first-ever illustrated history of the actual guitars of the stars that made the music. Other best-selling guitar histories look at the rank-and-file models, but this book is unique in profiling the actual "star guitars"--the million-dollar babies, such as the 1968 Stratocaster that Jimi Hendrix burned at Woodstock, which sold at Sotheby's auction house in 1993 for $1,300,000. Amateurs buy guitars to emulate the stars--Clapton's Strat, Slash's Les Paul--and this book explains the stars' modifications, thus showing how others can recreate those famous tones.

The original version of this guide has sold over 30,000 copies. This new edition has been expanded by 25% and promises to become an invaluable resource. For collectors, dealers and players, this completely updated "field guide" provides specifications, serial numbers, and more for determining the originality of vintage American acoustic and electric fretted instruments. Detailing thousands of models by every major manufacturer, the book now includes expanded coverage of Martin, Guild, Mosrite, Dobro, Gibson banjos, Fender amps, Gibson amps, plus updates on the latest models from Fender, Gibson, Rickenbacker, and others since 1990.

A must-have for any guitar lover! This book introduces the reader to 250 guitars of all types from the early acoustic archtop designs of the Gibson L-5 in the last 1920s, through the National resonators of the 1930s, the hollow body electric Gibsons of the 1950s, the solid body Fenders of the 1960s, to the exoskeletal carbon and glass fiber of the Parker Fly of the 1990s. Each entry has a clear color photograph of the guitar together with a detail shot featuring a point of particular interest of that instrument along with a description and a technical specification. It is arranged in alphabetical order by maker’s name and coded by the type of guitar. The guitar had a profound influence on many musical forms including blues, bluegrass, country, flamenco, jazz, folk, heavy metal, rock, soul, reggae, and modern pop.

Since the nineteenth century, the distinct tones of k&299;k&257; kila, the Hawaiian steel guitar, have defined the island sound. Here historian and steel guitarist John W. Troutman offers the instrument's definitive history, from its discovery by a young Hawaiian royalist named Joseph Kekuku to its revolutionary influence on American and world music. During the early twentieth century, Hawaiian musicians traveled the globe, from tent shows in the Mississippi Delta, where they shaped the new sounds of country and the blues, to regal theaters and vaudeville stages in New York, Berlin, Kolkata, and beyond. In the process, Hawaiian guitarists recast the role of the guitar in modern life. But as Troutman explains, by the 1970s the instrument's embrace and adoption overseas also worked to challenge its cultural legitimacy in the eyes of a new generation of Hawaiian musicians. As a consequence, the indigenous instrument nearly disappeared in its homeland. Using rich musical and historical sources, including interviews with musicians and their descendants, Troutman provides the complete story of how this Native Hawaiian instrument transformed not only American music but the sounds of modern music throughout the world.

This is a step-by-step guide to playing the electric guitar, shown in over 600 photographs, illustrations and exercises. It shows you how to master a range of diverse musical styles, such as funk and disco, heavy rock, indie rock, electric blues, country guitar, jazz, lounge and reggae.