Customer Reviews

Funky Organ Grooves Book with audio CD

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

 

 

I don't write too many reviews but felt this book was a very pleasant surprise so some positive feedback was in order.

The author did an exceptional job of exposing me to a wide variety of contemporary organ styles. This book is chock full of creative riffs, rhythms, and grooves in the rock, R&B, jazz, blues, reggae, and Latin styles. The author never seems to run out of inspiring ideas. (And if you are an improviser like me you can use them as a launching pad for your own stuff.)

I'm a weekend warrior musician whose playing had recently been stuck in a rut. Fortunately, after working through this book my playing has reached a new level of creativity and fun.

The enclosed CD is well recorded and easy to follow.

I can't understand one of the reviews below. I don't think the intent of this book was to concentrate specifically on the Hammond B-3; rather, I believe the author's intent was to show what kinds of styles and idioms the organ (in general) is capable of. In fact it might be kind of an advantage that drawbars and Leslie settings were not covered, because this book could be of great advantage to piano or synth players as well. True, there are some pentatonic-based riffs in the book, but that is exactly what I was looking for and very appropriate for the blues, rock, R&B, and other genres Mr. Gordon covers.

If you are looking for some new creativity and inspiration in your organ or keyboard playing this would be a great place to start. Highly recommended!

showed me exactly what I was looking for -- i've tried to take a lot of this stuff off c.d's and it's very time consuming. This book makes it unnecessary to go that route, and the grooves really cover all the territory you need for this instrument. Really good learning aid and it has helped me a great deal. Especially liked the section on reggae-nice addition.

I bought this book just getting into playing the organ. The level of difficulty on the exercises in this book cover a wide range. Stylistically there is a lot of stuff that is very useful. The CD included is great to use for practice. The only downside I found to it is most of the exercises in it are extremely cheesy, but even so it is a great segway into the bigger stuff. Check out the first couple pages that are free and give them a play, it's a good measure of the book.

The book gives some musical excerpts in various styles. Most of them are pentatonic. I found them to be uninspiring and not particularly organ-like (see comments on CD below).

The worst part of this book is that, beyond the bass pedal parts, it uterly fails to address the ingredients that make organ unique from other keyboard instruments. The book says nothing about drawbars, the expression pedal, tremelo, or Leslie speakers. I get the impression the author has never actually played a real Hammand B-3 organ in his life.

The examples on the CD are *not* played on an organ, but rather an Emu clone, with sequenced drums and bass accompanyment. Everything is quantitized and sounds incredibly mechanical.

I would recommend, the Hammond Organ Complete over this book. It gives a much more in depth treatment of this incredible instrument, and has excellent live session players playing on the CD - much more inspiring and soulful.

I did get some value from this book as sight-reading practice, especially the complicated rhythms. Also, the discography in the back is a pretty good reasource for finding out about great B-3 players.

How did this get published in the first place. This is wedding band level at best, come on.