The Total Shred Guitarist: A Fun and Comprehensive Overview of Shred Guitar Playing , Book & CD (The Total Guitarist) Paperback – November 1, 2010

When it said some wear, I was expecting it used. Then I began to worry that it had water damage. Showed up and barely the corners were worn, not even opened.....Even the CD was still sealed....Thank you for a great experience.

Hi all.First of all, I wanna say that the first thing I do when I get a guitar book, is listen to the audios on the more advanced lessons, to see how good the teacher is.And this is exactly the problem I have with this book. Even though the methodology is excellent (cause it is), the lessons are good, detailed, and you actually LEARN when you go through it...I find his guitar playing a little choppy.And it's like for example, he's giving a lesson on tapping, and I listen to the audio to see how it's supposed to sound. And I think to myself. Is this how I really wanna play when I get to this level?And I'm not sure I can say Yes to that question.I wish I could maybe do a compilation on two or three audios of the CD, and their respective tabs, to show you guys what I mean.Actually, you can go to YouTube, and search for German Schauss, and you'll see that he might have a lot of knowledge, but he's far from being (in my opinion) a teacher I wanna follow, since I don't like his actual playing all that much.If you don't have a problem with that... Rest assured, and go get this book. There is definitely GREAT stuff to learn here, and you'll improve your guitar skill. German definitely knows how to teach. That, I will give him credit for.

If back in the day we had PAUL GILBERT'S INTENSE ROCK, today in the new millennium we have THE TOTAL SHRED GUITARIST.Very very few people know how to teach Alternate Picking and other challenging virtuoso techniques. German Schauss makes this easy for you even though you have to practice for endless hours to get there.I am making a note of this because the term SHRED is used as a joke today where musicians that are NOT Alternate Pickers are considered shredders because magazines need to sells issues. But the term SHRED = VIRTUOSITY!!!This book is for the new generation of guitarists that wishes to become a good players. I wish we had this back in the 80s when I was just a kid, but we were in the dark ages even though Shrapnel Records and its guitar luminaries we're very inspiring.When it came down to, "How Can I Play Like That" we had very very limited resources and there weren't too many good teachers around.So if you are starting out and you are taking your playing very seriously, this is one book you should buy along with SERIOUS SHRED from GERMAN also and all his books.RAY ST JOHN

I am not a shredder, I'll confess. BUT, I needed to increase my speed, and I was tired of "just practice this harmonic minor scale" and this lydian mode over and over and over up and down the neck slow then faster...THIS book is a systematic approach to playing faster, whether your goal is to become a "shredder" or just want to be able to play faster parts as they appear in your mind in whatever genre you may play.The authors give you plenty of warm up material, which isn't new, but it's nice to have all in one place.THEN, they move on to more "quick thinking" exercises with scales, and ways to think about the fretboard, with goals of how to improve systematically. I've never seen such in any book before now, and it is exactly what I was looking for.Will this book help you? Well, if you can already play Yngwie at 280bpm, then probably not. However, for us mere mortals, it is a PERFECT set of material to help us get to the next faster level.Thanks to the Alfred crew for this book. I'll use it in all of my classes now...

Excellent for the guitarist looking for different techniques. Has tabs. Great info.

This book has helped me a lot in my lead playing,though I have not yet gone through it completely I will recommend this book to those who want to get into some of the basics of heavy metal lead and challenge themselves with some of the more advance techniques like tapping and sweep picking. If you're a dedicated beginner you can learn a lot from this book even though it's more geared towards intermediate to advanced players.It truly is worth every penny.

Dense, very challenging. Best for the intermediate to advanced player. Not for the beginner or beginner-intermediate struggling with speed or chops. Wish the format was more organized and progressive. Hard to know when to move on from one exercise to the next. As a beginner/intermediate, I ended up getting something a bit more basic to start.

A lot of useful information. This is a good book worth buying for any style. If your looking for something more comprehensive buy up the books I. The Troy Stetina series.

This is a great book for any guitarist looking to improve their technique. Lots of great exercises to get your hands warmed up, finger independence etc. I highly recommend this book.