I found this book to fall wayyyy short of all that it promised. I own a very large collection of music theory books and I’m an intermediate to advanced guitar player. The promises made by the author and the reviews posted here compelled me to take the plunge and purchase this one. Experience should have taught me the truth of the old adage that, “if it sounds too good to be true, it probably isn’t”… but I succumbed to the clever marketing and my sense of trust.

I am completely mystified at the numbers of glowing reviews of this book. I suspect these reviewers must be friends or associates of the author. I found the topics were not given sufficient treatment required to be clear and the highly-vaunted song references were not helpful because the author did not say what part(s) of these songs illustrated the concepts he wished to highlight.

The book is not worth my time and effort to provide a more extensive critique. The only reason I am even taking the time to post this (my first ever Amazon review) is to help others avoid the mistake I made by purchasing Fretboard Theory.

I ended up returning the book for a refund. To his credit, I will state that Desi Serna was true to his ‘money back if dissatisfied’ promise. The refund took a little longer to arrive than I would have expected, but it did and Serna was courteous and professional throughout.

Instead of this book, I recommend books by Ted Greene, Fred Sokolow, Joe Pass and Arnie Berle (among others) for learning music theory and its application to guitar.
Rating: 2 / 5

I hate to admit it as I got sucked into this purchase as well. In short, if you are a beginning guitarist and want to learn primarily how pentatonic scales relate to popular songs and the C-A-G-E-D methodology of visualizing the keyboard then this is for you…

there are better (and real) theory books out there.
Rating: 1 / 5

I decided to learn to play the guitar 2 years ago.

I have purchased hundreds of dollars worth of books and DVD lessons.

I have subscribed to several internet lesson sites also.

I practice at least an hour a day (almost every day).

Recently, i purchased this book and most of his DVD’s.

Nothing to date has done so well at conveying the technical details in a straight forward way while also demonstrating how the theory applies to popular songs we all know (excellent song examples – not boring stuff at all).

I think it just happened that i stumbled upon this at the perfect time (with respect to my skill level), i was able to move through it quickly / painlessly. I think this book is for intermediate level players. I would not recommend it for beginners. I think anyone buying this book should also buy the Pentatonic and Chord Progression DVD’s (they tied together perfectly).
Rating: 5 / 5

This is a great learning tool for guitar the fastest one I have incountered in a long time to get to know the fret board of the guitar is so easy to do with this book by Desi Serna , wonderful study makes the fingers and the mind move so much faster , thank you Desi Serna for this new outlook Deloy Robert Moore Singer, Song writer,Instrumentalist
Rating: 5 / 5

For me the most important aspect of learning anything is how the material is communicated. Desi does a great job of communicating in a precise, no nonsense practical manner that makes the material easy to absorb. Desi is genuinely interested in teaching and it shows.
Rating: 4 / 5