The Christopher Parkening Guitar Method - Volume 1

The Art and Technique of the Classical Guitar

By Christopher Parkening

As an adult beginner it was important to me to get all the details of beginning technique correct. This book is very explicit in detail and the pictures are very demonstrative.

Entered into a classical guitar major as an average garage band guy that couldn't read a lick of music. Went through both Parkening books within the first year and was playing Bach's lute suites within 3 years. Very good method and starting point for anyone wanting to play...

classical and read music in general.

I'm a public school music teacher in Utah. I'm a percussionist, not a guitar player. I've been looking for a book I can use in my guitar classes. I like this book. It's a newer edition of the one that was used in my University class...

. This book has posibly the best pictures and illustrations of playing position I've seen in a guitar book. Very clear and instructive. The music is wonderful. There are many duets and some trios for the student to practice which is helpful in developing listening skills and tempo control. Many of the early duets are student/teacher duets. The teacher parts would take some work for me to be able to play being a percussionist, but worth the effort. I would recommend this book.

I really like this book because it moves along quickly and the excercises are actually musically interesting. Practicing these excercises is much more fun then other books which i have tried.

This book is an excellent book written by a master of Classical Guitar. This book has some very nice arrangements of classical tunes, such as "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring." There are, however, some drawbacks to this method. One is the lack of technique building studies which are introduced...

primarily in Grade 2. Another is the rather small amount of music theory. However, I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn Classical Guitar correctly. It is especially helpful to people who already know how to read music, who want to learn Classic Guitar. The last review about this book is, in my opinion, overly harsh and critical. The person who wrote the review must not have known much about the method.