Ready Set Guitar

A beginner guitar book that makes learning fun for kids, with easy instructions & clear illustrations for children ages 5 to 9.

As a guitar instructor with 15 years of experience, Gerald Edward found lesson books to be intimidating for his young beginner students. Most were written at a middle school level and had too much text. So, he created his own children's guitar book for ages 5 through 9. Ready... Set.. Guitar! • Introduces kids to the first 3 strings of the guitar using easy-to-read print, a simple colors-and-numbers method, and straight-forward instruction. • Keeps students focused on performing familiar songs. • Gives teachers the freedom to interpret and incorporate the material into their unique lesson plans. • And empowers parents, regardless of musical ability, to coach their children through straightforward instruction. Better still, Ready Set Guitar educates young learners in the basics of sheet music. The staff, treble clef, and time signature are introduced, as well as how to read notes and rhythms in standard notation. Most guitar sheet music includes an additional notation: tablature (or tab), a number system indicating which fret and strings to play. In most publications, tab is printed very small, making it nearly impossible for young children to read. Ready Set Guitar provides a colorful, kid-friendly version of tab that is easy to comprehend. This method will also help non-guitar-playing parents better understand how to perform a song. Ready Set Guitar makes practicing after lessons easy and fun for students and parents alike, allowing for greater success and accelerated progress.

Gerald Edward is a seasoned guitar teacher with 15 years of private instruction and elementary school classroom experience. An honors graduate of Boston's Berklee College of Music, he was a member of the guitar faculty at Westerhoff School of Music and Art in New Jersey for ten years, and taught multi-student instruction in classrooms for grades K-6. In 2014, he founded Ditmas Park Guitar in Brooklyn, NY, where he teaches kids guitar, bass, ukulele, and keyboard. Gerald has had a well-rounded career in music, releasing two full-length albums of music, You Write the Words (2010) and Side A / Side B (2012) and another as a co-writer with the band Inland Traveler, Rivers Always Run (2012). He has toured the United States as a solo act and as a supporting musician. As a producer, he's composed and engineered music for Shutterstock's commercial library. He is a first call guitarist and bassist for special event music, averaging between 70 to 80 wedding gigs in the New York area per year. For the past 2 years, Gerald has been creating Ready... Set... Guitar!, a children's book that makes guitar easy and fun for new learners, ages 5 through 9. Gerald wrote this method with the intent to provide a great resource for teachers of young guitarists, as well as a helpful guide for parents who want to learn along side their children.