Popular Guitar Music can be referred to and enjoyed on many levels throughout a guitar player's musical development.

Popular Guitar Music is a study of guitar playing as performed and recorded by Chuck Berry, Joan Baez, the Beatles, George Benson, the Clash, Leonard Cohen, Jim Croce, Steve Cropper, Fleetwood Mac, the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, Kansas, the Kinks, Lynyrd Skynrd, Van Morrison, Joni Mitchell, the Rolling Stones, Paul Simon, the Who, Jerry Jeff Walker, Neil Young, and other guitarists of the past five decades. Guitar skills are thoroughly explained, from the most basic chording and strumming techniques to electric lead guitar and finger-style arrangements of melodies. Each technique is illustrated with transcription and references to available recorded guitar music. Well-known recorded guitar parts are also used to illustrate musical ideas. All examples are in TAB and staff notation. Concepts are explained progressively from the fundamental (names of notes, reading simple rhythms, etc.) to the advanced (chord construction, complex rhythms, etc.) and are presented with reference to and in terms of guitar music.