Customer Reviews

The Beatles Complete Chord Songbook

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

As a guitar beginner PLUS a Beatles fanatic, I have been searching for a book that will not only improve my playing but will also allow me to learn the songs that are so much an integral part of my life.... this is that book. A little melodramatic I know, but this is the only book that I've found that contains almost all of the Beatles' songs - from Love Me Do to The Long and Winding Road. It's got all the tunes that you'd expect plus it's got the ones you wouldn't: "Christmas Time is Here Again" , "That Means A Lot" are just a couple. Bottom line: if you love the Beatles and you want to learn how to play their songs on guitar - This Is The Book For You.

This book advanced my piano and guitar playing more than several years of lessons; it essentially taught me how to play by chords vs. sight reading. I do, however, recommend a few improvements:

1) Eleven songs appear out-of-order [check out the Amazon pages above]. Here's a list:
Dear Prudence (off by 4 pages)
Golden Slumbers (off by a whopping 36 pages)
I Am the Walrus (off by 14 pages)
I've Got a Feeling (off by 24 pages)
Long, Long, Long (off by 12 pages)
Maxwell's Silver Hammer (off by 4 pages)
Old Brown Shoe (off by 24 pages)
Rain (off by 3 pages)
Sun King (off by 14 pages)
The End (off by 2 pages)
You'll Be Mine (off by 8 pages)

[Perhaps the songs should have been listed in order by album/recording date?]

2) The binding is poor, and cannot be used on a music stand.

3) The key transposition (on songs where the capo is recommended) is a bummer... to play the songs without a capo requires a re-transposition [not too easy to do on-the-fly].

This book is a bare-bones chord structure guide to the songs written and performed by the Beatles in the 1950s and 1960s. It gives no real illustrations as to the exact fingerings used by the Beatles on their records. Titles include official discography rejects like That Means A Lot, You Know What To Do, and You'll Be Mine (all of which made appearances on the Anthology), but, inexplicably, do not include the 1970s Lennon demos-made-Beatles-singles Real Love and Free As A Bird. Seeing as the latter two songs were released as singles and thus should count more as Beatles canon than early-era testbed dross like In Spite Of All The Danger (recorded and released purely by incident), this book is, in my book, somewhat less than complete.

Este compilado de las canciones de los Beatles es realmente bueno, es fácil de ejecutar, y los acordes son casi exactos, sin embargo, no están todas las canciones y no presentan las partituras ni tablaturas para usuarios más avanzados. Pero lo recomiendo para uso personal o un regalo muy bienvenido.

Saludos

Alain

Perfectly new Beatles songbook for about 1/2 price of the stores. Tough to get this stuff on-line due to copyright problems.

Came plenty quick too!

Okay, So all the Beatles songs we know and love in one handy book is awesome and the price is right. However, as a person who reads music, I was dissapointed that the melodies where not written in. I often play with other people and find that it's nice when someone can take the melody... But this little book will keep us busy for a while with the original chords until we buy a more complete one.

This book is easy to follow, great for anyone wanting to learn Beatles' songs, the chord pictures are a good size, and soooooo many songs. In a few hours you can learn any tune in the book. A really great tool.

If you love to play guitar and can't read music, this is a fantastic book. Most Beatles's songs that I can think of are in this book and the chording is very accurate and you can play right along with your CD / mp3 / other media. the songs range in difficulty is good, there is a little bit here for every guitar player who enjoys the works of the Beatles.

This is not only an invaluable source of Beatles tunes and lyrics, but an excellent learning tool. Because of the rich variety of chords from song to song you will find yourself learning a lot of new chords with no pain at all. It's not many books that I can claim I've easily gotten my money's worth dozens of times over.

This is a fantastic product. I've been writing down my own chord charts and printing and modifying terrible files from the net to Beatles tunes for years, and this is exactly what I've been looking for: a simplified, easy-to-read collection of every Beatles song.

Some folks have complained that some songs are simplified too much, but for those folks there are the tab and piano and vocal books for the individual albums. This book is for folks who want to play and sing the tunes at parties or around the campfire.

My only complaint is about the format: it is very difficult to keep the book open to the page you are reading from. It eventually gets easier as you bend the pages, but my friend's book is now essentially destroyed after a year or using it.

Otherwise, this book is absolutely worth the low price, and is perfect for Beatles fans of any age who want to strum and sing along to their favourite tunes.