MJS Music Publications Total Scales Techniques and Applications - Guitar (Book/CD)

Don't waist your time and money

I've been playing guitar for five years, but I've recently come to realize a problem: I'm learning to play songs, I'm not learning to play the instrument. I'm self taught, and thought I had pretty decent technique. This book showed me the error of my ways! It's incredible. The first several pages were enough to raise my technique, and I haven't even gotten out of the first chapter! Buy this book, whatever your skill level, however long you've been playing. It's amazing.

I've searched for a scales book which gave concise but easy to understand explanations and instructions. I found this book to be very good. The most important aspect of learning scales is practice, practice, practice. Mark John Sternal is a great instructor. I highly recommend this book.

This is perfect for any level guitarist who wants to shape up their skills. This is one of the most useful instructional book for guitar I have come across. If anything this book is more useful than alot of the scale books I have seen. It surpassed "Guitar Grimore" in numbers of ways. The text of the book kinds of annoys me, but the content is really good. Not much to say, but if you are a beginner then get this and get a teacher. If you are an advancer player I would advice this as well, but just look at it and see what you missed.

This book has help me tremendously with my guitar techniques. It helps explain and go into detail on techniques and how to do them. It has helped me tremendously

I own this book and consider it priceless! To date I've never found a guitar book that so clearly explains its contents. The beginning of this book is very beginner friendly and progresses at a steady rate getting you used to playing all over the fretboard. The author has you achieve this by using 3 finger patterns. Each scale position points out major and minor root notes, so you can easily change things up. Although this is a book on scales, Sternal does introduce basic chords on page 18 which can be used with the scale to write music. You don't need to memorize each scale position because pages 19 through 88 has you repeating them when new techniques or applications are introduced. This alone has helped me become familiar with the entire fretboard of my guitar as well as every cool trick I've ever heard or seen in concert! The second half of the book introduces modes and key changes. Not only does the author clearly explain how to change keys, he also does the work for you. Every key change is written out for the entire fretboard. Cultural and exotic scales are also included, and again written for the entire fretboard. The entire book is written with staff connected to TAB, just like most magazines and song book transcriptions. It also includes a CD which the author narrates and performs the entire book. I own over 70 guitar books, many of which have left me frustrated and confused. Total Scales Techniques and Applications has proven to be the most amazing tool I've ever seen for guitar players. This book has taken me by the hand and made me a very advanced guitarist.