Customer Reviews

Funk Guitar: The Essential Guide (Private Lessons)

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

 

 

I have never played funk music before - thanks to this book, now I have a clue and I'm having fun playing along with the tracks on the CD of this outstanding method. The exercises are truly useful and build gradually your funk chops from the scratch (no pun intended).
The book is much easier if you already know about dominant chords, but it does not require advanced playing.
Verry fun and instructive! A great book!

this is a nice book, it starts with some basic (but useful) 16ths exercises then moves on to some very cool grooves, the CD tracks although basic do sound professional, something I appreciated ... you'd think the grooves here are easy but they are not, they are simple but not easy at all if you want to play them like Mr. Bolton does on the CD (he plays pretty much on top of the beat & he has great timing) ... most funk tricks you hear are explained here, scratching, skanks, slides, muting, funky shuffle feels ... I would have liked more exercises to develop the other rhythmic figures in this book but overall it's very good

If you've never played Funk guitar, you will when you're done with this book! I have to disagree when anyone that says this book is not for beginners. The chords and rhythm grooves on the CD are exactly what beginners need to stay interested in chords, chord progressions and structure. It will also please the ears of parents and other nearby listeners. There is more to the fretboard than shredding you know. Once you start getting the basics of this book underway, I strongly suggest listening to some James Brown, Tower of Power, Funkadelic (the sixties stuff), Rick James, Prince (the beginnings) and The Meters (Cissy Strut).
There is some very good stuff in this book!

This book is great! I went to Musicians Institute and actually took the funk class with the author of this book. You would get a lecture hear him play with the band (travis carlton on bass) and then we would all line up and perform what we just learned with the band and get feedback from Ross. It was great. I have since then gotten rusty and in no time this book has helped me get back in shape. For those who haven't it's still great! No joke you'll be funky in no time with this. Spend about 20 minutes a day on it and also go back and review things you've done already from time to time. With this book and some of the recommended listening you are in good shape to start getting some groove work out there. Playing in funk bands ect. Or say you just want to tighten up you're rhythm playing. It will do that great too! The cd is pretty nice and help to hear things you might not know from just reading the book.

The exercises are to the point and lead you to a perfect sense of rythm.

This is a good basic book for people who like to play funky music. After finishing it, I liked to find more about this kind of music. The audio CD is 100 % OK and very instructive. The book is thin and essential, it goes rather fast, and I think it is not suitable for beginners on the guitar.
But most important of all : you can just play along, and playing is the essential in music.

Ok- this is the best funk method book that I've ever yet to come across(of course we NEED more than 2 accessible titles from solid publishers) and I love nothing more than getting new guitar books. Perfect progression of exercises that take you from the building blocks to even a whole tune at the end of the book/course. Ross quite simply knows how to teach and he delivers the best bang for buck that I have seen focusing almost solely on the most important elements of groove. I felt that this packet was a better overall buy that the Thaddeus Hogarth book - as that course I felt gave wayyy too much printed space to really easy soloing concepts that one could just as easily absorb and condense from a few basic books on blues improvisation and his backings included were literally 2 measures long- thus not nearly long enough to really lock that groove. So the nod- clearly goes to this most Funktacular book for me. A MOST Awesome purchase from the MI family here... Pick it up and add some serious groove to your writing/jamming...

Funk Guitar is a great introduction to learning how to play a specific version of funk on the guitar, but it is a far cry from being "The Essential Guide," which is how author Ross Bolton bills his book. It does contains a lot of very useful information. There is a great explanation of timing and strum patterns, which is great, and there are a lot of different voicing of key chords, such of dominant 7ths and 9ths. However, this book should really be called, "The Ultimate Guitar to Rhythm Funk Guitar." 95% of this book deals with chugging along with chord progressions. There is a chapter on scales and single note melodies, but it is really short. This book is short enough where there should be more on this. In fact, the reason why I got this was to learn funky guitar lines, which is not really present.

I recommend this book for people who want a quick lesson on rhythm funk guitar. This book won't have you popping like John Frusciante or getting down like the great funk groups from the 1970s, but it's not all bad, if bought at the right price.

-Anthony
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This is a very, very basic, simple introduction to the style of guitar playing known as "funk". There is little discussion of complicated music theory in this book. It just introduces funk-style guitar playing which, truth be told, is a very simple, easy and fun style of playing once you get the hang of it. An intermediate guitar player could go through all this material over a weekend. Most of the material taught in this book can be absorbed merely from listening to Nile Rodgers, Leroy Bonner and other funk guitarists as well as watching youtube videos.

One of the most difficult technique is what the author refers to as "skank" whick involves fretting one string while muting the others thereby achieving a single-string note accompanied by the distinct funk scratch. Methods to accomplish this was what I was really hoping to get help with, but like I said, the book is only an introduction so it didn't go into exactly how this is accomplished. So I was a little disappointed. I was hoping for something more advanced.

The book has a CD and dozens of practice exercises that involve funky rhythms so it's a lot of fun going through this material. The last chapter puts it all together, and the student can participate in a funk party jam. It's a fun book.

the sample tracks are great, lots of fun to play
Book is informative and progressively gets more difficult.