I think we can all agree that there are a number of ways to go about learning music, but when it comes to, learning rock guitar (or any kind of guitar, for that matter) one’s choices are narrowed down a bit. Pop music songbooks usually are sketchy and inaccurate affairs with come-on titles like “Super Hits of the Eighties”, and the chord diagrams can transform a Frampton tune into something that sounds like John Denver. And you can forget finding a rock guitar solo written out either in standard notation or guitar tablature, except in rare Instances. (I will say, and I hope it gets printed, that Oak Publications offer the best guitar instruction books I’ve ever run across, but even so, Oak concentrates primarily on older stuff, traditional blues, slide, finger-picking and flatpicking styles of greats such as Doc Watson, Clarence White, and so forth. Not much help to the guy who is in hot pursuit of the contemporary rockers.) So where does this leave the student of rock guitar?

Well, what usually happens is this. The rock guitarist tries to copy licks off records by his favorite guitarists, usually with no visual aids at all, just ears, fingers, and a whole lot of determination. That is the way most guitarists learn.