HARMONIC MELODY -- THE ULTIMATE AND EASIEST GUITAR METHOD Newel Kimballs guitar instruction provides anyone wishing to play the guitar: 1 a musical notation method that is easy to read, simple to understand, musically complete, obvious, natural, beautiful and easy to play, 2 the fundamental instruction necessary for developing the ability to play complete guitar music, 3 the fastest possible start-up on the guitar, 3 an in-depth introduction to the beauty and enjoyment of the guitar, 4 an in-depth understanding of chord theory, song theory and guitar theory, 5 to develop the ability to play virtually any song by ear, and 6 to open the door to all amateur and professional areas of guitar music, including music therapy. WHAT IS HARMONIC MELODY?: Newels method is the Harmonic Melody system, which includes simultaneous integrated arpeggio fingerstyle accompaniment. Harmonic Melody means that a song is played on the guitar much as a song would be played on the piano-- with each note of the song being played as an integral part of a chord when three, four or more notes are sounded at the same time. It is orchestral in nature and is the kind of music played by guitar masters Les Paul, Chet Atkins, Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler Dire Straits, Wes Montgomery, George Benson, Herb Ellis and certain others. Harmonic Melody is a method of rendering the entire music of the song with one guitar. It is quite different from classical and lead rock guitar. Both methods typically make use of single-note-melodies. While often beautiful to the ear, the single-note method spends little time on chord structure, vital to full orchestral music. Also, harmonic melody differs from rhythm accompaniment, in that accompaniment does not present the melody at all but as the guitar is very suited for accompaniment as well as melody and as the accompaniment forms the basic background of a song, accompaniment skills are explained and encouraged. HARMONIC MELODY is how music is played on an organ or piano and by orchestras and bands. Even though harmonic melody is the essence of keyboard and orchestra music, it is not the common style generally played on the guitar, and the reason is simple staff notation has become the common musical language because it is a natural and obvious method for keyboard notation like piano and organ. However.it is entirely unnatural for fingerboard instruments like guitars, banjos and mandolins. The mis-match is the reason why guitarists must spend years of study and practice to master the difficulty of translating the staff notation to the guitar fretboard and is the reason why the guitar is most commonly played as an accompaniment or single-note instrument. Tablature is the other popular guitar notation method, and even though it is more natural and explicit for the guitar than the staff, tablature is hopelessly slow to read due to the ever-changing use of numbers for the frets. Worse, both staff and tablature do not show the right-hand fingeringthe most vital aspect of guitar music. Now, full-picture notation written in GuitarPerfect symbols allows practically anyone to quickly play beautiful harmonic melody arpeggio fingerstyle music. WHAT IS GuitarPerfect NOTATION? Newel Kimballs method makes use of his unique full-picture fretboard symbol, now copyrighted and trademarked as GuitarPerfect which facilitates an immediate entrance into the world of the guitar. Chords for the left hand are shown in full-picture form, including specific finger placement using unique finger symbols for each note of the songs melody, while right-hand symbols for each note of the songs melody are used to integrate the powerful arpeggio fingerstyle accompaniment, thus creating Harmonic Melody the ultimate guitar method. No time is lost in the laborious effort of translating the keyboard language of the staff to the fretted fingerboard of the guitar. After learning a few basic essentials of the new notation system, complete songs can be played almost immediately. With the time thus saved by the use of the GuitarPerfect symbol, there is more time left to study and understand both the theory of music and the theory of the guitar. Much of the chapter materials are devoted to the fundamentals of music composition, as well as the fundamentals of playing by ear, thus reducing the need to rely on someone elses instruction or musical notation INSTRUCTIONAL DVD Also included with the manual is an instructional DVD showing a two-panel video presentation of the playing of the songs and providing useful and little-known explanations of music and guitar theory essential for figuring out the music of others, and especially helpful for composing ones own music. Also included are in-depth graphic presentations of all pertinent materials and techniques presented in the manual. The visual and aural DVD facilitates the fastest possible learning and playing of a songs melody and accompaniment. THE SONGS The eight songs in the manual are graduated in reasonable order of difficulty, starting first with songs with the slowest tempo and simplest of chords, followed by songs with more chords and fingering complexity. A beginning guitarist will find this progression both challenging and satisfying. An advanced guitarist can enter at the proper level of challenge and complexity as best fits them. After mastering these songs, Newel Kimballs Seventy-Five Gospel Favorites for Guitar will provide ample material for expansion. Also, with the acquired understanding avanced by the manual and DVD, the guitarist will be able to play virtually any desired song by ear. CHARTS and GRAPHS Explanatory charts and graphs abound throughout the manual. Worksheets are provided for chord and song transcribing purposes. NOTE: Also available is the companion volume Newel Kimballs Seventy-Five Gospel Favorite for Guitara book of the all-time beautiful songs witten in the GuitarPerfect-Harmonic Melody style.