Play-Along Books

[Wolfboy1]

Beboy brought these up in another thread:

"I have been thinking about this for a while and what I was planning to do is buy some of the Play-Along books during TrueFire's Holiday Sales (if they have them like they usually do). Then as I learn songs I will burn their backing tracks to CD so I'll end up with a CD that only has backing tracks for songs I know. Once that is accomplished I can put in the backing tracks CD and play along.

If I could just stop making excuses and start playing more I might someday accomplish this.

Play-Along books:
http://truefire.com/list.html?store...tion=play_along"


I thought I would add my 2 cents as I already have at least 15 of them.
Most of them are a blast and the will get you learning entire songs plus the cds they come with are the rest of your band. Each of the Hal-Leonard series have a disc with a complete track (no vocals) and a track without lead guitar. Plus the discs have some kind of software to allow you to slow the playback down on your computer.
I generally use powertab when at the computer but I have a tascam GT1

(like this but an earlier model)
and I love popping when of these in to learn new songs.
My favorites are:
Vol.3 Hard Rock
Vol. 43 Lynyrd Skynyrd
Vol 41 Eric Clapton
Vol 36 Southern Rock

Hal Leonard also has a "Guitar Signature Series." Good books but not complete songs. I like The Best Of The Ventures, and the new one on Robin Trower.

Anybody else have or use these style of books?

[mikespe]

I put mine on a Digitech Jamman. That way I can slow the tempo down if needed (like the CD) but its stored on my gear for easy access.

[beboy]

I have:

Vol. 41 Eric Clapton
(There's also Vol. 24 Eric Clapton but I don't own it.)

Vol. 30 KISS
I was a Kiss freak when I was a young kid. Posters, trading cards, stickers & albums. This was before I played guitar. My friend and I would grab tennis rackets, hold them like guitars, and lean over backwards as far as we could, just like Kiss would do.
NOTE: 7 of the 8 songs in the book have the guitar tuned down 1/2 step. You can still learn the songs in standard tuning but if you want to paly along with the jamtracks you'll need to tune down.

Vol. 27 David Lee Roth
Weird to name a guitar book after a singer ain't it. This book has hits from Van Halen era and David Lee Roth solo era.
NOTE: 3 of the 8 songs are tuned down a half step and 1 song (Unchained) is Drop D and tune down a half step.
The Van Halen era stuff (except for Hot for Teacher) is the stuff that is tuned down a half step.

I've decided I need to take one of my guitars and leave it tuned down a half step at all times (I just haven't done it yet).

I'm eyeballing some of the books Wolfboy owns, especially the Hard Rock one. Maybe you can already tell this but I have a distorted past (I grew up listening to the hard rockers [Sabbath, Maiden, Loudness, etc]).

[mikespe]

30 KISS
I was a Kiss freak when I was a young kid. Posters, trading cards, stickers & albums. This was before I played guitar. My friend and I would grab tennis rackets, hold them like guitars, and lean over backwards as far as we could, just like Kiss would do.

I was a member of the Kiss Army so don't be too ashamed! I still like their music to this day...not so much the newer stuff but the classics!

I'm eyeballing some of the books Wolfboy owns, especially the Hard Rock one. Maybe you can already tell this but I have a distorted past (I grew up listening to the hard rockers [Sabbath, Maiden, Loudness, etc]).

In high school I took the bus to school and brought my getto blaster on the school bus cranking Black Sabbath, Rush, Van Halen...been to 2 Iron Maiden concerts (back when they toured with Judist Priest!) so I can relate very much...but for the life of me I can barely play a lick...except for Sabbath but those are only simple power chords!

[slasner]

see my post here... with this title
"here's a thought"

http://truefire.com/forum/showthread.html?t=1152