Customer Reviews

Antonio Carios Jobim for Fingerstyle Guitar

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is really an excellent little book, and for any intermediate level guitarist who wants to learn some Jobim tunes, this is the probably best place I have found to get started.

What is really nice about this particular book is that each piece is very playable once you master the basic rhythm and the fingerings, but the arrangements are not in any way simplified. They remain very true to the original keys and treatments as Jobim actually recorded the pieces. In fact I would not really describe what is included here as real arrangements in the sense of, say, Carlos Barbossa-Lima's ( a much more difficult book); rather, these representations of the pieces are more like the lead sheet arrangements a really good guitar teacher would work out for a student. (You know, where he goes through the lead sheet and writes chord substitutions above the chord symbols.) The chords represented in the tablature are very accurate, as are the rhythms. (There are no graphic representations of the chords - only chord names and tablature. Fingerings are not included either.)

Each piece is preceded by a very brief description of the song and occasionally some minimal performance notes, but other than that there is really not much useful information included in the book other than the tabs themselves. In fact this is my only criticism - lack of any real explication of the style or the pieces.

Oddly, although credits are given for the book design and cover art no credits are ever provided for the arranger of transcriber of these pieces. In any case the tabs alone are well worth the price of book, even without much explanatory material, since it would cost a small fortune to get a real guitar teacher to work all this out for you with this level of accuracy.

Just to make crystal: "fingerstyle" as used in the title of this book means that it provides arrangements for solo guitar, to play melody and rhythm together. This is not a chord book, for example, to learn authentic voicings to sing over.

I only write this because of my ignorance of the term. For example, the wikipedia on "Fingerstyle guitar" says, "Bossa nova is most commonly performed on the nylon-string classical guitar, played with the FINGERS rather than with a pick. Its purest form could be considered unaccompanied guitar WITH VOCALS, as exemplified by Joćo Gilberto. (emphasis added)" So, again, just to clarify, this is not a chordal accompaniment book, it's arrangements for solo guitar. Of course, nothing stops you from singing with it, too.

My thanks to those who commented meaningfully on my prior review (which I deleted). I was expecting a chord book and was disappointed. Hopefully you, dear reader, will be spared this. I am giving a 5 star rating so as not to detract from the overall rating from the other review, which is based on the substance of the book, not its purpose.