Customer Reviews

Mel Bay Improvising Solos For Guitar (Book/CD Set)

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John Lawrence is a talented single line guitar soloist. The 1st 4 tracks of the Cd deal with creating a motif,developing the motif, reaching a climax and then cooling down. The last 5 tracks are complete songs with backup and Lawrence's improvs. They sound to me like slightly funkier versions of Kenny G (very listenable). You could use the last 5 tracks as easy listening material thus. I must mention that these last tracks are not completely transcribed, perhaps 80% and I can't vouch for the accuracy of the tab. You will be confronted in the 2nd track with fairly long combinations of fast 16th note sextuplets and 8th note triplets. There is no primer on how to play these combinations(pick attack,accents etc.) other than listening to the CD and following the tab so be forewarned. There is a primer on the natural minor scale but it is not very useful as John uses at least 3 other scales in his demonstation solo including A minor pentatonic, A blues and A Dorian. I found the book to be useful but it could have been better if just a little more time and care went into it. I haven't run into a book like it however and still recommend it. If you go to the Mel Bay website you can hear an audio sample of one of John's recordings from the CD. At this time I'd recommend ordering the book thru Amazon because I am currently dealing with an overcharge incident from Mel Bay which I hope will be resolved. I also had problems with the Mel Bay Express website when I tried to order.