Customer Reviews

Funk Keyboards: The Complete Method--A Contemporary Guide to Chords, Rhythms, and Licks (Book & CD)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(0)
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2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I love this book. Gail Johnson has taken me from loving this style of music to being able to actually play it. She's just done a fantastic job of introducing and teaching funk keyboards.

The book comes with a companion CD, which is very useful, as the notation is fairly complex, and I find it quite helpful to also hear the parts and play along with them. After a few repeats of each exercise, the recorded keyboard drops out, and if you're playing along and there's no apparent transition, you know you've nailed it.

I will spend weeks digesting this, getting facile with it, learning it in various keys, and integrating it into my playing. The cost is miniscule compared to the value.

If you love funk keyboards but haven't been able to work out how to play them just by listening or you don't know someone who can show you this stuff, this book is for you. I just wish I had had it 20 years ago.

The only change I would request is for her to add extra audio tracks of the complete songs that go at maybe half speed. It's taking me quite a while even to learn a couple measures of the best stuff and bring it up to full speed. I'd like to be able to play along sooner, at a more manageable speed.

I think Jeff K.'s review is entirely correct. There are a multitude of usable examples of runs and progressions. I really enjoy using the cd with Digital Preformer - I'll load up an example, loop it and play over it until I have the timing right.
After using Levine's Jazz Piano Book (if you don't own this book you should) for five years Gail Johnson has helped me change up my voicings and rhythm - even helping me modernize (if you can consider 70's and 80's funk modern) my personal sound.

If you like Bob James, Deodato, George Duke, etc. this book will get you a little closer to what you are looking for.

I'm not a bass player, but Josquin des Pres wrote an OUTRAGEOUS book on classic funk and r&b grooves for bass. I load some of his audio into my sequnecer and try to incorporate some of Gail's ideas. It's really good practice and infinately more interesting than most of my workouts.

There's a book by Peter Gelling that has a similar title that is no where near as good as this one.

For a fourth of the price of one piano lesson you will learn a lot.

Gail Johnson is not only a good teacher but she is an inspiring person aswell. I have not met her and only know her music from this book, but I can say that the method is thorough, and the music is playable and it genuinely builds your technique and musicianship.

She takes you from basic grooves to complete songs. All the while the music is sensible and meaningful, and allows you to grow your knowldege and technique.

This is what good music instruction is about - presenting beautiful music with insight and inspiration. It's not easy to do outside of a music lesson, but she has pulled it off. Now how about a book 2, something with more funk studies, perhaps?

I picked up this book knowing some chords and scales, and it is putting it all together for me. It has taught me new voicings to all the old chords and new rhythems for all those scales. I sound so much better now. It's teaching me great techniques for using both hands to create a professional sounding bubble gum machine of sound. After working with this book for just 4 days I went and jammed with friends and they were amazed at how much I had improved. If you want to sound funky on the keys, buy this book.

Gail Johnson has done a great service to the music community by writing this book/cd. It is chalk full of USEFUL riffs, rhythms and changes actually heard in contemporary and classic funk. The cd has almost all the examples (80+) found in the book and a lot of the riffs will sound very familiar if you are acquainted with the genre. It's a welcome change from examples in other music books/cds which often times are more theoretical than practical. Her writing is very concise yet enlightening and a great variety of styles and topics are covered. I especially appreciated the clav licks. As well her funk discography at the beginning is of the highest order. Price of $15 retail? This deal smokes. Great job Gail and Musician's Institute. More quality publications like this please.

This book is what I have been looking for in a method book. The chords, the music, and the rhythms are "funky." I popped in the included CD into my cd player to listen to a few examples of the music that's in the book. I've always wondered how funk was played. This book contains most of the answers.

very repetitive, midi jam tracks that sound awful,
and you are with nothing that you can apply
to real world of playing.
I gained much more from the Hal Leonard Blues Piano
and Smooth Jazz Piano Series books. i.e. useful licks,
chord progressions and basic soloing techniques

I'm a funk person. I like writing funky grooves, I play, and have been playing. I've got minimal funk chops, and so I was looking for material to learn more vocabulary from.

Well, this book ain't it. It covers the basic of the basic, bread and butter type stuff. I guess it's very good as an intro to funk keyboards. In other words, if these phrases sound foreign to you, then you definitely need to get these bases covered. But beyond that, the book doesn't offer too much.

Bottom line: Can the book inject a good amount of funk into a stiff classical player? Yes, and it will cure his bad knee too. (funk heals) If you already know what you're doing fairly well, NO, this book isn't for you.

Interested in playing funk keyboards? Then get this book. Has everything you need to know to get you started... and more.

This book really got me playing the funk. It shows you everything from chords to chord progressions to grooves to licks, to bass lines. Get it all together with some practice and you're a funk master.