Mel Bay Fingerstyle Jazz Guitar/Teaching Your Guitar to Walk Bk/CD set [Sheet music]

Paul Musso (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 8, 1995

A very well-written book teaching the popular fingerstyle bass/chord "walking" jazz guitar technique. This book is made to order for the novice fingerstyle jazz guitarist who wants to tie chord progressions together with great sounding bass lines. Through short exercises and original compositions, Paul Musso establishes theoretical ground rules for a systematic approach to playing creative bass lines. Technical and harmonic concepts are gradually introduced with the goal that students are able to lay down authoritative bass lines of their own invention. In notation and tablature.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Paul Musso is a professor of music at the University of Colorado at Denver. He has been with UCD for nine years teaching fretboard theory and applied guitar studies. Paul is also an honorarium instructor at the Community College of Denver where he has been teaching music theory, music appreciation, music on the computer and guitar studies for the last six years. Mr. Musso is a versatile freelance guitarist trained in jazz, blues, classical and Latin styles. He has performed throughout the Colorado area in many diverse musical settings including the Colorado Symphony, the Boulder Festival Orchestra, the Aspen Music Festival, and the Westcliff Jazz Festival. Paul is the author of two Mel Bay books, and has contributed to Fingerstyle Guitar Magazine. Paul currently lives in Denver where he maintains a career playing guitar in straight-ahead jazz and solo guitar settings.

Product Details

• Sheet music: 60 pages
• Publisher: Mel Bay Publications, Inc.; Saddlestitched edition (December 8, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786603143
• ISBN-13: 978-0786603145
• Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 8.7 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,409,098 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars a taste of jazz guitar, April 17, 2008

By 

Redgecko (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mel Bay Fingerstyle Jazz Guitar/Teaching Your Guitar to Walk Bk/CD set (Sheet music)

This is not a book for beginners to learn jazz. There is almost no theory and the chords are much too hard for any beginner. There are also many typos, mostly in the tablature. But if you already have a couple of years of fingerstyle music under your belt (preferably classical) and want to learn a few cool jazz rhythms, then this book has a few. I particularly like Latin Lines, Southern Ragtime and Jazz Blues. These are fun pieces to play and most listeners will think that you're a real pro when they hear you play them, that is, unless they hear you play them twice which is when they might realize that you're playing what you memorized (jazz player mostly improvise). You might also learn to train your ear to recognize some jazz chords and progressions. But as I say, the book is not for beginners and is not comprehensive. You'll need much more if you want to learn jazz but this is great for noodling around.

Most Mel Bay books are junk or are meant to be studied with an instructor. The covers look good, the song titles look cool and they are filled with snippets of wisdom, but they are designed to sell books and not to teach music. If you really want to learn any style of guitar then you'll need to work with a good instructor, preferably someone who either plays in public or used to. There are just too many questions that a book can't answer and then there is the matter of correct posture, healthy hand positions and supplemental exercises and pieces that only someone who is working with you can recommend. Even many pros take seminars, master classes and even regular lessons from musicians better than themselves. People who bought this book and expected to learn jazz guitar had unreasonable expectations, probably are new to the guitar and fell for the "eye candy cover" and cloying promises.

I contacted Paul Musso a few years ago to ask him some questions but recently I tried his email address at the Mel Bay website and it no longer works. You can find most of the errors in this book by assuming that the music is correct and the tab is wrong.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Great if this is what you want!, August 18, 2000

By 

Sven "Sven" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mel Bay Fingerstyle Jazz Guitar/Teaching Your Guitar to Walk Bk/CD set (Sheet music)

I know where Mario Ratnaraja is coming from, I had a similar response to the book, although nowhere near as strong (I'm hanging on to mine!) The book is indeed as he describes, a lot of walking bass lines with jazz chords interspersed here and there. I was a little disappointed, as the scope of the book is very narrow, and I thought I was going to learn to play jazz melody over the walking bass. I look at the book as a very specialized course of study. If you want to learn to do this, then this is the book for you, and it gets five stars! I may go back and work on the book some more, as it would be cool to throw some of this into the middle of a song somewhere. Maybe over the rest of my life I'll get through the whole thing (then again, maybe not!)

If you are looking for something more melodic, try Musso's Graded Fingerstyle Jazz Guitar Solos Book/CD Set. These are solos based not so loosely on jazz standards, which you'll have to recognize on your own as they aren't identified.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Unlock the secrets of walking bass lines and jazz chords..., January 12, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Mel Bay Fingerstyle Jazz Guitar/Teaching Your Guitar to Walk Bk/CD set (Sheet music)

If you're ready to break out of the 1-4-5 pop-rock rut and start playing jazz guitar, this is your book. This book will NOT turn you into Joe Pass, but then again, no book will. It is an introduction to jazz rhythm guitar, and as such, it is without parallel. If you work with this book, your guitar technique will expand dramatically. People will wonder where you learned how to play so jazzily, and with such swing. Buy this book today.