This is a list of recommend books which I will continue to update. Most of the books are here because I use them a lot with students. I have many more books I use in lessons, but these are the best ones.
For Guitar
The Complete Rock and Pop Guitar Player Vols 1-3
by Rikky Rooksby
This is a great foundation with excellent backing tracks provided. In my opinion this is the best book available to beginners as it has extremely well selected songs with wide appeal, the backing tracks sound great and are fun to play with, and the order of the syllabus is extremely well thought out. I use this guitar course as the backbone of my own syllabus for beginners and this course will give a very solid footing on the guitar that will give you a lifetime of pleasure and allow you to branch off into more specialised areas (should you wish to) with confidence.
For Bass
The Bass Bible
by Paul Westwood
This is a great book which focuses on the most vital concern of the bass player – grooves. The grooves are numerous (over a thousand examples in virtually every style, including world rhythms, jazz, reggae, funk, hard rock, metal, blues). The author is an experienced session player and gives valuable insights into the fundamentals of each bass style in the section introductions. This book is a great one to buy as you can dip into it any time you feel like getting into a new groove.
For Jazz Guitar
Mickey Bakers Guitar Course
by Mickey Baker
This book was recommended to me by a fellow teacher and I’ve since come to realise that it is a timeless classic for a reason. Unlike most jazz guitar books, you don’t need to know all the scales and modes to get started and instead this book focuses on the chord sequences and voicings that will give you an authentic feel for the smooth sound of jazz from the outset. The first few pages alone are a wealth of great sounds, and the course moves on to scale exercises and lead improv only after establishing a solid grounding in rhythm.
For World Music
The Atlas Series
The Atlas series of guitar books cover styles including Middle East, Africa, India, Celtic, Flamenco and Japan. This is a very new range of books and I highly recommend checking them out if you are an experienced player looking to get into these styles.
Rhombus Publishing
For serious world music students, do check out all the titles on Rhombus Publishing, written by Jerry Leake, an ethnomusicologist with decades of experience and extreme skills all his chosen fields. In particular, ‘African Bell Ritual’ particularly affected my sense of rhythm and books like this have a profound effect on your perceptions, relationship and creativity within music. Highly recommended.