The most recommended guitar books

Howard was a top Los Angeles session guitarist (one of the fabled Wrecking Crew), jazz stylist, and brilliant visionary who combined his skills to create the Guitar Institute of Technology, an innovative, intensive program that trained thousands of professionals and transformed guitar education.

The Guitar Compendium is the result of Howard’s decades of research into learning theory and information flow applied to the guitar. It’s not a standard guitar method (and not designed for raw beginners), but rather a collection of practical, thought-provoking solutions to the universal challenges of learning and playing the instrument, from developing technique to breaking through creative roadblocks. If you’re an aspiring, curious, and perhaps frustrated guitarist, The Praxis System is a unique source of wisdom and inspiration from one of the greatest.

Madame Sidney Pratten is a unique figure in the history of the guitar and sadly neglected by history. She was well known and well connected in her day and taught many notable members of Victorian London society to play guitar, including Princess Alexandra. Her real name was Catharina - in her public work she used her husband’s name, as was common at the time - and she published her Guitar School after many years of teaching, to great acclaim. It is the most informative, wise, and practical guitar book I know, full of useful information, beautiful music, and insight into the learning process.

This book is not currently available.

One of the living legends of builders of archtop guitars, Bob Benedetto describes his personal construction methods in this excellent book.

Although some aspects of guitar building are common among all types of guitars, archtop guitars have an architecture that borrows a lot from the violin family. Building this style of instrument offers unique challenges, and this book describes the entire process in exquisite detail. This is where many modern builders of archtop guitars got their start.

When I started playing rock guitar in the ‘60s I had no idea that it was built on the innovations of African-American blues and Gospel artists. Sound of the City traces how those innovations evolved into the dominant strains of ‘50s rock & roll, including artists like Bill Haley, New Orleans dance music, Memphis rockabilly, Chicago R&B, and vocal (“doo-wop”) groups. 

Gillette creates an extraordinarily detailed and very readable account of the music and musicians as well as a booming, often corrupt, and highly segregated music industry within a turbulent American social landscape. If you want to learn about American music in all its variety, this book is a must. Like Deep Blues, read it within reach of a music streaming service.

As a kid, I loved this funny and frightening book about the terrible things that happen to bratty children (the same could be inferred for bratty octogenarians).

I’m sure my parents hoped these tales would encourage more reasonable behavior. Instead, these tales set me on a path to writing dark stories. In this case, the contrast of humor and the horrifying is addictive, and characters in any kind of book that combine these traits are always compelling.

The illustrations in the version published by John C. Winston Company are particularly quirky, increasing the impact of each story. This book probably had more influence on my book than I realized during the writing.

The Beatles didn’t know how to read music, and typically, rock musicians don’t read and write music. So therefore it’s a challenge to us, the people who learned to play around campfires, at the beach, and in the roadhouse, just cause we wanted to. Instead of merely presenting an increasingly difficult set of examples, Oaks teaches us how to think about reading music. He’s a great guy and it’s the best book of its kind I’ve come across.

Most builders of stringed musical instruments desire some information about how the instruments they build actually produce sound.

The problem of producing a book on the subject is that it is highly technical and as such largely inaccessible. Mark French’s work expertly addresses this issue. The result is a work that is as accessible as possible and also complete and technically accurate.

The author has the perfect background for a work like this. He is a professor of engineering technology, and he uses guitar design and construction as the basis of teaching his highly popular courses on STEM subjects.

Classical music is often seen as being unapproachable, demanding, and difficult, the domain of geniuses and prodigies not for ordinary mortals. This delightful book makes available some of the greatest guitar music ever written in a form that is accessible yet recognisable. It enables the intermediate-level guitarist to advance their abilities while playing pieces that will transfix any audience, impress friends and family and render great satisfaction to the performer. 

Although this was a novella, not a novel, I have to put it as my 2nd-favorite book of 2022. When I read this, Mia Dalia was an author I wasn’t familiar with at all. Well, that has certainly changed!

Discordant is a supernatural tale of love, loss, and music set in the world of rock and roll. As a guitar player myself, this one hit really close to home, but you don’t need to be a musician to appreciate the rise and fall of a bar band musician and his desire to be so much more, even if it means giving up his life – or worse.

Dalia’s writing is almost lyrical, and her characters practically leap from the page because they are so real. The ending might very well bring tears to your eyes.

This book has almost nothing to do with Eric Clapton. Rather, it’s an engaging story about Wayne Henderson, a retired mailman who makes some of the most desired acoustic guitars anywhere. He prefers to build for people he thinks need one of his guitars. It’s impossible to read this book and not want to make a guitar. I turn to it for inspiration when one of my guitars isn’t going well and I need to remember where I’m trying to go.