Customer Reviews

Beginning Jazz Guitar

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I have this book. In fact, when I decided to try to learn jazz-style guitar it was the first book I got. At first, I liked the format. I was slowly learning to read music, but I liked the fact that there's a coding that tells you which finger to put where. Very important for a true beginner.

But there are parts of it that seem out of order. The finger warm-ups should have been before any music was presented, then the notes in the first position, and then start with the simple Frankie and Johnny song. The way it is now the song is first, then the notes you use for it, then the warm-up. I found it a little backward.

I think it would help the jazz beginner if the author told what improvisation is first before having the student launch right into it. I found the improv of the Frankie and Johnny tune confusing and kept trying to superimpose the simpler tune introduced earlier on top of it to see if I was playing it right!

Iit's just that for me, anyway, a true beginner, by the time I got to page 12, he talks about the key of C, and giving me chords to follow, and I'm saying I'll take your word for it! The next chapter on jazz chords was, oddly enough, the easiest to understand, but the Swing Guitar Piece that follows, while easy to play, introduces chords whose names I couldn't pronounce at the time. Not good for the beginner. There are chords that look like they have exponents that I'm supposed to memorize, chords with big M's and little M's and I'm supposed to know that they are different.

Suffice it to say that I was a little disenchanted with the book. I never got past Chapter 2. I've since found a beginner's book that's a lot easier to understand, that's actually teaching the music me as well, not only what the chords are but why the chords are. (I still haven't figured out the one with the degree symbol yet, though.) Maybe after I finish that one, I'll go back to this one and will be able to follow it. But it shouldn't have been called a beginner's book. You definitely need a background in music first before you tackle the exercises.

This book is not for a true beginner, but it does have a good chord fererence in the end of the book that shows chord formations using the top, middle, and bottom stings. That has been helpful to me and I still refer to it sometimes