To many
guitarists—professional and amateur—rock is one of the
major reasons they first picked up the guitar. Elvis Presley and
his "Baby, Let’s Play House" made a legendary
guitarist Jimmy Page want to play the guitar as a teen. Young
Eddie Van Halen spent hours listening to god of the rock
guitar, Eric Clapton. In fact, from the Beatles to U2, guitar has
always been a significant part of the rock music scene. In
particular, the instrument has historically played a key role in
laying down a driving and steady rhythm, which is the foundation
of rock music. While flashy, fast guitar solos attract much
attention, accompaniment is indeed what a rock guitar
player does the majority of the time to support the vocalist and
the band. As important as it is, rock guitar accompaniment—the
topic of this book—is also one of the most enjoyable aspects of
learning rock guitar. With this book, the beginning student can
learn gradually and systematically how to play the basic guitar
chords and accompaniment styles typically played in rock.
Chapter 1 reviews such basics as guitar parts,
tuning, and basic music notation and theory.
Chapter 2 introduces the basic open chords
and the accompaniment style called strumming. In each
section, you will learn some of the most common guitar chord forms
and how to read and play simple rhythms. The last section of the
chapter then discusses the 12-bar blues—the basic song
form often used in blues and rock.
In Chapter 3, you will learn about the barre
and movable chords and how to transpose the basic open
chords to different keys along the fingerboard.
Chapter 4 presents more open chords and fingerstyle,
an accompaniment style that predominantly uses fingers.
Chapter 5 first discusses some of the left-hand
techniques typically used in rock guitar. Then it introduces an
important accompaniment style called riff—a short
accompaniment figure repeated throughout a song. The last two
sections present alternative chord forms, a discussion on arranging,
and song examples of various rock styles.
Chapter 6 discusses some of the common guitar
equipment, such as amplifiers and effects, used to create an
important ingredient of rock—sounds.
Throughout the book, various music examples and
sample songs are included to show how basic guitar chords,
accompaniment patterns and styles, and various techniques can be
brought together to make up an accompaniment. In a similar manner,
I highly encourage you to create as many of your own accompaniment
examples as possible. Lastly, this book presents many of the
guitar chords and accompaniment styles commonly seen and used in
rock. If you are, however, interested in learning other guitar
chords and accompaniment styles, refer to the other books in the Guitar
Chords and Accompaniment Series. (See page 126 in
this book.)
Good luck! I sincerely hope you have lots of fun learning some
of the most interesting aspects of rock guitar by working with
this book!
From Rock
Guitar Chords and Accompaniment
Happy
Holidays! 
