Customer Reviews

GT15 - Guitar Grimoire: Progressions & Improvisation

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I've heard much of the Grimoire series for guitar, and finally decided to give one of them a shot. This is the one I chose because I mainly wanted a source of reference for various progressions.

Unfortunately, a lot of the book (first 150+ pages) is dedicated to the basic triads and chords founded on them, and similar material. For my level, having studied music since age 5 and playing guitar for close to four years now, I was not interested in this. On the positive end of the first couple of sections of the book, the author does present some basic concepts pertaining to chord progressions, which are useful insofar as they demonstrate his method of presentation.

The author then pieces together basic forms of four chords (this is still with no alterations) and creates, in every key, various combinations of four-measure mini-progressions. He also explains several ways in which these can be pieced together to form songs, and uses this approach in his examples; however, for Mr. Kadmon (who is, self-admittedly, a completeness [person]) this isn't very exhaustive at all.

This book also presents multiple scale patterns that can be used for each chord. Throughout, there are mentions of issues of compatibility of chords and substitutions, and there are a few charts in the appendices that outline, rather completely, these possibilities. The author, however, opts to refer the reader to his other Grimoire publications, as a way of avoiding redundancy.

The latter portion of this book goes through a multitude of combinations of soloing patterns, including some really weird scales. This, once again, isn't very comprehensive.

The last section, which I found to be the most useful, are progression exercises. Although the author still refers the reader to the Grimoire Chords and Voicings book for all varieties of possible positions for each chords, the voice leading combinations presented here are excellent. In the words of the author, this section is practice for fingers, mind, and ear.

I would recommend this book for someone who is willing to expand his horizons, and has not had much exposure to music theory or the subject of the placement of notes on guitar. Also, it seems as though possession of the other three Grimoire books (Scales and Modes, Chords and Voicings, and Chord Encyclopedia) would be beneficial. Other than those mentioned above, and the author's poor use of English grammar (I'm not sure of his ethnic origin), the books is complete and accurate. Would definitely work for someone who's reached his limit in a stage of development.

This is a great addition to the family of Guitar Grimoire books, however, it doesn't really live up to it's name. I have every other guitar grimoire book, and this one seems to be my LEAST favorite. I'll explain.

The book (or at least, the bulk of the text) it about chord progressions. At first this may seem helpful and useful, but at the same time, it presents a very unoriginal message; because of Kadmon's extensive nature, he depicts nearly every progression used in popular music these days, which may lead some people to SETTLE for those simple 4 - bar progressions. I'm surprised it was not fueled on creativity and ingenuity, and more on structure and "sounding good."

The book has little about "Improvisation", or at least, it was not what I was expecting. It has a section about "window soloing" and a good section on music theory, which is a great addition to this book. However, I find that I like this book a little more after owning the Chord Encyclopedia and the Chords / Voicings book. It's as if this is the last one you should buy out of the series; it's like piecing the things together. I give it 3 stars for the fact that it doesn't really need to be this big and long for what's inside. I'd say it's useful for reference, but for creativity, it's basically a manual for cliche progressions, and if everyone in the world only used these progressions, all music would eventually sound the same.

Analysis: Good book for the brain, not so good for originality's sake.

-Dr. Kenneth

For me, this book has been great. I am at a level that I am just starting to get into the theory side of music, and really interested in finding a way to explore improvisation without sounding like i'm just noodling or whatever. Anyways, as you've no doubt read in the other reviews, this book is not intended to be a stand alone piece. All of the books that kadmon has put out kinda go together, if you just need help in one certain area, you get just that one book, if you are trying to get a fuller picture of music as a whole, you probably need at least 4 of his books. Having said that; this book really clears up the possiblities of what keys are appropriate to play in with what chords, and vice versa....

The other two reviews here are pretty acurate, so I'm not going to go on and be repatative, but for me, this book was worth five stars. Kadmon has made a series that could make an excellent life long reference point for musicians of almost any level it would seem to me.

I agree with the reviewer who wrote:"The last section, which I found to be the most useful, are progression exercises. Although the author still refers the reader to the Grimoire Chords and Voicings book for all varieties of possible positions for each chords, the voice leading combinations presented here are excellent. In the words of the author, this section is practice for fingers, mind, and ear." Much of the rest of the book seemed off the subject.

The content is useful for noivce through advanced guitarists. The book itself literally fell apart the day after I bought it though. This publisher does that.

I've gone through this book several times, and I feel pretty confident in saying that the author(s) have absolutely NO idea how Western music is organized. How anyone could fill nearly 300 pages with supposed information on chord progressions without ever using the words "tonic" or "dominant" is completely beyond me. The book doesn't even mention the idea of functional harmony. The harmonic concepts at use in modern rock, pop, jazz, etc aren't that far removed from those used in Bach's time. Over 300 years of functional harmony and the author(s) of this book have absolutely no clue about any of it.

I wouldn't recommend this book to anybody, especially those without any previous theory education. There's hardly any useful information in the book, and what is there can be incredibly misleading to someone that doesn't know better.

It really is an accomplishment to create something that seems so thorough yet omits even the most rudimentary information about chord progressions.

I really only got a lot of good from the pages about theory. There's so much in this book it is hard to call it truly "useful" but I guess if you are hard pressed to find a random chord progression you can always flip the pages of this hefty tome.

There are much better books out there than this one. Guitar Aerobics being my favourite. I would not recommend this and it is the best of the Grimoire series!

to use it for keyboard!!!!!! I've had this book for years, and while some of the chord changes I tried are ooookay for guitar, on keyboard they are great. This seems to be that a lot of the progressions have these dramatic shifts that sound WONDERFUL on my synth. I've been getting more into that lately than my guitar (which I've been playing self taught for close to 20 years), so I've always wanted to learn to play synth/piano, and once you learn some chords, you're off and running. I can/could write well enough to save songs, any more than that, and you've been fooled by the classical/elite, that make you think you need to be a pro before you can do anything. sadly I doubt anyone playing or owning a keyboard will get this stroke of genius. But even if you're a guitarist that has a keyboard and doesn't know how to play, look online for chord charts (they have many free sites), learn the major/minor chords, and the key location, and use this book, it was NOT made for this, that's why it works so well. It gives me ideas either playing what he wrote, or adding a chord or changing the progression. haahahaha happy accident!!!!

Best approach I have EVER seen in instruction. I accidentally bought this book thinking it was the first one in his series. It is not it and its DVD are the third. However since all of them are stand alone status right at the beginning of any of them and at light speed the student is viewing and learning complex music theory with the help of some very nice charts and drawings. Liking what I saw I rushed out to get the other 2 books and all 3 DVDs at Guitar Center. And his exercise book too! The concepts he explains and the way he does it is a very good approach. I have never taken the time to write a review in my life. This stuff is that good. The grimoire thing although strange is effective.

On top of being excellent in its instructional value this stuff is necessary as reference material for any serious guitarist.