A year or so ago, I took it upon myself to try to learn to play guitar, after winning a shiny new black Fender Stratocaster and a Marshall practice amp in a contest. After all, as everyone knows, those of us who write about rock music are in fact frustrated rock stars ourselves, right? Or so the myth goes...

Anyway, things went pretty well for awhile. I bought myself one of those Guitar For Dummies instruction books, and dutifully set about the task of learning the few basic chords of songs like "Michael, Row Your Boat Ashore" taught in the book. I figured I'd be playing like Hendrix or Clapton in no time.

But then something happened — well, two things actually.

The first thing that happened was the dreaded F chord, which was something that I just couldn't quite wrap my stubby little writer's fingers around. You had to be one of those ambidextrous human rubber bands to master that damned F chord as far as I was concerned.

The second thing however, to be quite honest, was my own lack of discipline and a creeping sense of boredom with the whole thing. My first novel has been on perpetual hold for much the same reason.

So, like my favorite American president Richard Nixon, I gave up. Go ahead, call me "The Quitter." I dare ya'...

The truth is, endlessly practicing songs like "Home On The Range" will only take you so far for so long. The guitar has been gathering dust in my living room ever since. I could have used a book like this one back then.

When Owen Edwards' From Zero To Rock Hero: A Crash Course In Playing Rock Guitar showed up unexpectedly in my mailbox earlier this week, I had to take notice. Here was a book which made the bold claim that in a mere six weeks, I could be rattling windows and pissing off my neighbors like the guitar hero I always knew I was born to be. Like that song by Traffic says, here was a book that promised I could  "sing a song, play guitar, make it snappy."

Article Author: Glen Boyd

You'll find Blogcritics assistant music editor Glen Boyd sharing his Thoughtmares on his personal blogs The World Wide Glen, and The Rockologist. In a previous life, Glen was a music professional and journalist whose work has appeared in The Rocket, SPIN, Pulse!, and The Source. …

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