Customer Reviews

The Guitarist's Guide to Composing and Improvising Book/CD

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I'm lucky to have studied with Jon in the early 90s when I attended Berklee. In short, I'm still learning from the materials and ideas he transmitted in our lessons. This book has all those ideas and more. It's an incredible wealth of information.

Buy the book and save yourself lots of money OR quit your job, move to Boston, enroll in Berklee (it's like joining a priesthood of a 1000 frustrated guitar players), try to become a jazz-snob (growing a goatee will help), and maybe if you're lucky, you'll get one half-hour a week with Jon each semester. (He's one of the most sought-after teachers at Berklee.)

BE WARNED: This book is not for beginners, it's only for serious players and those that really really want to learn how to play well. If that's you, then this book is an excellent guide.

-- gabriel perry
...

PS - The CD that comes with his book is great. The examples are very musical and inspired. So much so, that I contacted Jon (his email addy is in the book) and bought his "Dedications: Faces and Places" CD.

I feel bad having to contest what others may have written in criticism of this book, but it really is misleading to say that this book is aimed at a low level. It is neither a waste of time or money.
John presents ideas in this book that many guitarists, young and old, may have never explored before. In many places he abandons the typical format of "how-to-play guitar" method books in favor of exercises that demand the student to be creative, expressive, and individual. I find this very refreshing, and necessary, in today's state of music education.
If approached with an open mind, many of these deceivingly "simple" exercises can become very deep.
There are also great exercises dealing with counterpoint, three-note structures, ear training, scale studies, etc.... These are all presented in John's own way and with a good sense of humor.
Like most worthwhile music books, what you will get out of it depends on how much you put into it. I would recommend this to guitarists who are in search of fresh ideas, but who also have self-discipline and an interest in making things their own. you can really take this stuff to the roof if you want to.
The idea that this is aimed at a low level, or doesn't contain enough hard work, is just plain wrong.

I have been very fortunate to be a student of Jon Damian in Berklee. He opened up possibilities and approaches to studying the guitar, which proved revealing and very inspirational to me. Now I studied with Jon myself, I can clearly see in which ways he influenced the many major (jazz) fusion guitarists that once studied with him. I'm not going to mention the names of the famous players who studied with Jon: if you want to know them, they're mentioned in his book. Jon doesn't really care about that honor anyway... he only cares about the music.
"The Guitarist's Guide To Composing and Improvising" totally reflects Jon's adventurous, imaginative teaching style and advanced musical ideas. In a light-hearted yet thoughtful way, the book teaches about the aspects of composition and improvisation on the guitar, starting from the premise that improvisation is actually "composing in the moment". Jon calls this "comprovisation". This leads to many very interesting, advanced musical ideas like for example "contrapuntal improvising". I can understand that more conservative players or musicians with a less open-minded attitude can't look beyond the light-hearted approach, and thus miss the overall point and message the material in "The Guitarist's Guide To Composing and Improvising" contains. Too bad for these musicians: mastering the guitar does indeed require a healthy dose of brains, attitude, imagination and insight. Somebody who turns down this book, obviously doesn't understand the material it covers, and is not ready for this book yet. After all, the serious student guitarist soon finds out that the ideas in the book might seem simple at first, but really mastering the ideas presented and being able to incorporate them in your playing, is a totally different ball game. Only through an ongoing process of years of dedicated practice will one get to master the material in this book. "The Guitarist's Guide To Composing and Improvising" is geared towards musicians of all levels (also the very advanced) who want to tap into advanced compositional and improvisational tools on the guitar. Being a student on the guitar for over 10 years now, "The Guitarist's Guide To Composing and Improvising" contains a wealth of material that is still going to keep me busy for years to come. I therefore strongly recommend this book to every musician/guitarist who is serious about his/her art.

I've always been a bit intimidated by improvising. If you don't know how to do it, it's difficult to figure out. Learning scales, chords and arpeggios give you something to practice, but the real question is how to make music. In this book, John Damian provides a blueprint for the exploration of melody and harmony. I've only owned the book for a couple of weeks, yet already new possibilites have been revealed. Any serious guitarist must own this book.

If I had a dime for every "lick" book out there I would have a lot of dimes. The lick books stay on the shelf. Damian's book seeps into your musical creativity. Once you start playing with the ideas in this book you will realize a whole new world of sonic possiblities on the guitar.

To me Jon is really getting us to get out of the "comp" and "solo" dual personalities that most guitarists are subject to. He shows how you could have your soloing be more harmonic and your comping be more melodic.

The "pallette chart" demonstrates the world of sound that is not a triad or seventh chord. This is the area that great players like Ben Monder and Bill Frisell and Jon Damian are masters of.

The thing I like best is that I will be able to keep refering back to this book all my life. The ideas never end. Jon teaches you "how" to keep exploring the guitar and music.

You just might not ver need another "lick" book.

Morris Acevedo - guitarist...

This book is possibly the best book I've ever purchased regarding music. There is so much in here. Jon has sparked so many ideas for me. I haven't needed to copy anything of his. I've just attempted some of the exercises and gone off on a tangent and what'da'you know, there's a song/tune written in a way that I hadn't thought of writing in. I've used lots of books to study with over the years and too many are licks oriented. This is about concepts. Jon is stressing experimentation and gives ideas to branch from. As has been recommended, it's not only for guitarists. This is a rich source ideas for all musicians serious about composition, whether it be the composition of a new tune or just composition of a part that is uniquely you in someone else's tune.


Unless you too are a halfwit, don't be fazed by previous comments by the TAB-tards. Anyone with half a brain knows that if you learn to speak a language you will be better able to access the richness of the culture if you learn to read that language. That way you have access to the vast literature and learning that has occurred before your small existence. Imagine John Coltrane saying "this sucks, I can't read music. Can you write it out showing which buttons to press!"


Anyway, there's so much in here that I'll be using this book for years to come. Also, I love Jon's compositions... You can tell that he taught Frisell and Krantz. Either he's rubbed off on them or they've rubbed off on him. It works both ways I guess. You gotta love the contribution he's made to music through his student though. Hats off!

I really don't know which book the 1 star-reviewer read, definitely not Jon Damian's book!
This is the best guitar instructional book - and on music in general - since Mick Goodrick's "Advancing Guitarist".
It also addresses beginners, but intermediate and even advanced players will find a wealth of information in this wonderfully written book. This is a lifetime's achievement, it will revitalize your creativity, I promise.
It certainly is nothing for scale-nerds, it is a book for the "thinking guitarist" or, as Mr. Damian says in the subtitle, "The Curious Guitarist". So, go get this one, you can easily spend the rest of your life with it.

This book is almost religious to me. It is great for when you get bored or "stuck" feeling doing the normal practice routine of scales and exercises. It really can set the mind free. I have seen so many new possibilities in my playing through this book. And it's fun as well. You need to be a little "right-brained" and open minded to really benefit probably, but this is the best guitar book I have ever owned.

This one book, in the two weeks I have owned it, has tapped me into my musical intuition faster than anything I have ever tried before. As a semi-pro player who's been playing 11 years I have often negleted using pure theory instruction for my instrument because I thought I had a fairly decent ear and playablility. Boy was I wrong, the first lessons shattered boundaries for me and I can finally understand how music can be seen as a volume of sound in 3 dimensions. I had no clue beforehand how incredible the experience would be!
I urge any serious guitarists to pick up this book and fly with it. Its amazing the things you never notice until Jon makes them easily decernable. YOU WILL NOT BE DISSAPPOINTED. If there is any one book I couldn't live without, it would this one. Thanks Jon!

I really tried to like this book but in the end I felt mixed. It would be so easy to take potshots at some of the suggestions in this book so I won't. But I will mention the 'Jaws Study', 'The One Note Guitar Solo', 'The Try Playing Guitar W/Your Other Hand','The Alphabet Anthem of Pick Strokes', and 'The Cycle of 4ths Study of Scale Modes'(which is not clearly enough explained I think). Is the intention for you to play Mixolydian scales over all of these secondary, tertiary, 4th,5th, 6th generation removed from the root scale, scales and why ? Wouldn't it be just as instructive to play all the modes of every scale you know from a common root ? Perhaps the answer will become apparant to me at a later time. I think making a recording of random chords for ear training is a good idea and I hope to get the time to do that,(good use for the IPOD too if you can transfer the mp3.) The musical examples are on the accompanying CD and most written in the key of C and notes on or close to the staff. In other words, you don't have to be a sight reading wiz to play them. You just need some basic reading skills. I give this book 3.5 stars but may upgrade that score at a later time. This is a unique book. I've not read one like it. It requires work on your end. Some technical rhetoric could/should have been simplified. It's almost as if it were written in a steady stream of consciousness. It may grow on me yet !