Quick Tour

The focus of this website is on self-instructional materials for learning about music and for learning to play the steel string acoustic guitar. These learning materials are intended for use by individuals with varying levels of musical skill and knowledge, including beginners. This website offers a great many ordering options to better serve a wide array of learning needs. The abundance of free content on this website will better allow you to make the best and most cost-effective personal use of these learning materials.

You can begin familiarizing yourself with these learning materials in a number of ways. The Quick Clicks allow for a brief and intuitive take, and demonstrate the progression of complexity from a melody to an ensemble arrangement to an ensemble arrangement with rhythm guitar accompaniment. The audio excerpts from the Rhythm Sampler CD exemplify the types of music you can learn to play by making use of these materials. And after taking this Quick Tour, you can either start reading through the pages of this website in order, or you can go directly to the two Core Catalogs and start listening to music.

The links in the Site Directory of this website are of two basic types. The links at the top of the directory are the main content links. These links bring up the pages that explain the innovative learning materials offered for sale on this website, and that include the Add to Cart buttons that allow for their purchase. Because the main content pages are lengthy and complicated, each is preceded by a Page Summary that provides a quick review of the contents of the page.

The links at the bottom of the Site Directory go to pages of supportive content. The Articles are a collection of broad-themed essays that provide a brief but informative overview of music, music education, the guitar, and the theory behind the innovative learning materials featured on this website. The Schools and Studios page makes the argument for the use of the learning materials featured on this website in schools and studios. The Downloads page contains links to various pages of supportive content, as well as links to several freeware programs that are required to make use of the main content of this website.

The extensive content of this website centers around a series of innovative music books called the visualinear tablature guitar series. The music contained in these books is of various types and styles, including folk, classical, contemporary, and traditional. All of this music is arranged for steel string acoustic guitar, and notated (written) in visualinear tablature, a simple new guitar notation. The arrangements are of two basic types – guitar ensemble arrangements and rhythm guitar arrangements.

Guitar ensemble music is introduced and explained in Melody Guitar, a manual of music that includes a general introduction to the formal study of music. The Guitar Ensemble Core Catalog is a collection of 190 guitar ensemble arrangements in 10 volumes and in a variety of musical styles. Any of these arrangements can be listened to in its entirety, in MIDI format, on this website. These guitar ensemble arrangements can be ordered by the volume in four different ordering formats, or individually in the e-score format, a fascinating and highly effective learning resource. The e-scores for the Exercises from Melody Guitar can be freely downloaded from this website.

Rhythm Guitar is a manual on rhythmic (chord-based) styles of play on the steel string acoustic guitar, with an equal emphasis on flatpick styles and fingerstyles. Audio excerpts from the CD for the playing Exercises from Rhythm Guitar can be reviewed on this website. The Rhythm Guitar Core Catalog is a collection of 160 rhythm guitar arrangements in 10 volumes and in a variety of musical styles. Audio excerpts from the CD tracks for each of these arrangements can be reviewed on this website. These rhythm guitar arrangements can be ordered by the volume in three different ordering formats, or individually in PDF score format.