Rhythmic Lead Guitar: Solo Phrasing, Groove and Timing (2010) by Barrett Tagliarino. This book/CD pack takes you step by step from beginner to master of the rhythmic aspect of soloing and riff creation.

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Click here to buy Rhythmic Lead Guitar.
Right-click here for a pdf of Chapter One (1.7 MB).

You'll apply exact timing to bends, slides, legato articulations and grace notes to get your soloing under your complete rhythmic control. No prior music reading knowledge is required, but you will learn a bit about correct rhythmic notation as you go. Over 150 examples are tabbed and notated, and demonstrated at slow tempos on the CD.

Chapters 1-11 set up the basics: counting beats and divisions, playing in time, finding any beat, syncopation, pickup phrases, articulations, determining and contributing to the groove, finding and defining the correct phrase length.

Chapters 12-19 cover motific development; setting up audience expectations with form signaling; odd meters; creating syncopation with displacements, additive rhythms, pedal tones, polyrhythms, and metric modulation.

For reference, an appendix provides positional scales of the CAGED system, arpeggio shapes, 3-note-per-string scales, and modes.

Guitar Reading Workbook (2007) by Barrett Tagliarino. This fun method book arose from Reading classes for beginning GIT students. Concise explanations and diagram exercises similar to those in the Fretboard Workbook let you relate the notes on the reading staff to their fretboard positions.

Reviews for this book can be found at amazon. Your feedback is welcome there, too.

Click here to buy Guitar Reading Workbook.
Right-click here (64 kB) to download a pdf excerpt of this book (or left-click if you view pdf files in your browser). You can also use the "Search Inside" function at the amazon.com page to see bigger chunks of this book.

The Guitar Reading Workbook is great for beginning guitarists or experienced by-ear players who want to get started reading notation (not to be confused with the Guitar FRETBOARD Workbook, which may be what you're after).

Early assignments in this book might take about 5 minutes to complete. Later ones can take up to half an hour. The exercises differ from chapter to chapter. Sometimes you just have to write the names of some notes or chords that you see on the staff. In others, you write which beat number a rhythm falls on. Later, you'll read some tab and translate it into regular notation, or look at some notes and identify the chord they make, and so on. When you've finished the written part, you pick up the guitar, turn on the metronome, and play the notation.

Throughout the book everything is made easy and clear as possible, so you don't ever have to learn two new things at once. But if you get this book, you should spend at least 6 months to a year with it. Go slowly! It starts out basic but takes you into some reasonably advanced territory.

The Guitar Fretboard Workbook (2003) by Barrett Tagliarino (click title to buy) is the top-selling book on Musicians Institute Press, and has over 95 customer reviews (thanks, people!) to help you decide if it's right for you. You can also "Search Inside" this book at amazon. We have reviews from magazines and online forums here. You don't have to read music to use this book or the next one.

Chord Tone Soloing for Guitar (2006) by Barrett Tagliarino (click title to buy) is a book/CD combo that covers different territory from the others. Once you know the fretboard, you still have to know which notes to play, and when! This book has also been very popular; reviews here.

Barrett's latest CD, Throttle Twister, is transcribed in both tablature and traditional notation for you here in an 8.25" by 11" book. Click to buy it at amazon.

It starts with basics like the 5 minor and major pentatonic scale patterns, dorian and aeolian modes, and the blues scale. Then you cover soloing techniques: string bending, vibrato, pull-offs, hammer-ons, and slides, along with some finger exercises to break out of the scalar rut.

There are then some classic blues and country licks that are essential to the style, with a demonstration of how to use them in major and minor keys.

Finally Barrett demonstrates phrasing principles using solo excerpts from classic songs, including "Black Magic Woman," Maggie Mae," Already Gone," "La Grange," "Money," "Stairway to Heaven," All Along the Watchtower," and Alvin Lee's "Goin' Home."
Reviews here.