Customer Reviews

Mel Bay Guitar Arpeggio Encyclopedia

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

 

 

I was hoping for something better than this. I have a thorough background in this stuff and think it could have been presented in a much better way. A good break down of the CAGED system would have been nice for beginers using this book aswell as a bit of chord theory. There were lots of small errors aswell. If you know how too construct arpeggios you'd catch them but a beginer/intermediate might not. I think there were many redundent arpeggios in here and the book would be more work than what it's worth.....that being said I'm personally a study fiend and study as much usefull guitar material as I can.

I bought this book a couple of years ago simply for the fact that Ted Greene endorsed it (in the preface).

I have to say that it helped me to think differently about the subject (arpeggios) and break out of some of my own limitations & conceptions. It is very good for helping any player get used to position shifts up and down the neck using 3(+) octave arpeggios.

His left hand fingering solutions are different than the stock Yngwie clone stuff (and I've seen tons of it), it's interesting & challenging -and therefore helpful in pushing (you) out of your box.

It has a really excellent (but small) section on different (but not widely known) picking approaches that will surely challenge and expand any "shredder" or other player.

All that being said, it is a rather advanced book that would require a lot of patience for a beginner -but the payoff for such a person would be well worth the effort.

Its weak points are that, yes, there are some typos, mistakes & misprints here and there. Also, I HATE it when a book of this size doesn't have a spiral binding as it doesn't sit well on a music stand.

Buy it. It's a great resource and very comprehensive.

If you really, really want to dig deep into arpeggios on the guitar, this book is a very thorough study. Arpeggio Encylopedia includes gradual and large position shifts and patterns for innumerable chord formulas. There are some big stretches for the hand and some interesting and challenging fingerings in here. I like the layout and format of this book. You can work in small doses and get patterns gradually under your fingers and into your ears and head, in reasonably consumable segments. Andy Martin has clearly deliniated suggested fingerings throughout, and this is very helpful when learning position shifs. He doesn't tell you to alternate pick or sweep pick or any of the other plethora of techniques that can be effectively applied to arpeggio studies including hammer-ons, slides, pull-offs etc.. It would in my opinion probably be over-kill to notate this anyway, and not doing it leaves some leeway for the students own creativity. This book doesn't give you theory or CAGED system (to me this is a plus, I'll get that elsewhere and so can you.) It is also up to you to move the given arpeggio patterns into other keys for further study. The only downside (Attention Mel Bay, this book really needs a spiral type ring binder for ease of use on the music stand.) If you master or even just practice some of what is in this book, you will certainly improve as a guitarist and musician. I have made real improvement in technique, and more importantly in how I conceptualize and hear myself and others playing music, fine work from Andy Martin.

Don't question it. this book isnt for beginners either. This is some complex stuff, but he's got all kinds of arpeggios you can concieve (And some you cant). If you read the front before the main section, he tells you how this book was intended to be used, so you know what to do. the fingering is key though, Sometimes you'll try to play it just by looking at the notes & numbers, but it doesnt flow, but if you look at the fingering, everything fits together. But do everything like he says and that stuff sounds great. This book isnt straight sweep picking the entire way through either, just so you know, but it is awesome none the less. serious shred action.