Melodic Rhythms for Guitar [Paperback]

William Leavitt (Author)

Book Description

Series: Guitar Method | Publication Date: November 1, 1986

A thorough presentation of rhythms commonly found in contemporary music including 68 harmonized melodies and 42 rhythm exercises. This highly respected and popular book is also an excellent source for duets sight-reading and chord studies.

Product Details

• Paperback: 70 pages
• Publisher: Guitar Method (November 1, 1986)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0634013327
• ISBN-13: 978-0634013324
• Product Dimensions: 11.7 x 8.9 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #55,506 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars THE sight reading tool, April 28, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Melodic Rhythms for Guitar (Paperback)

This book is essential for any guitarist hoping to make it in the world. Sight reading is very crucial, as it is the language of music. If you couldn't read, then how good of a job could you get. The bitter truth is, if you can't sight read, what kind of gigs are you going to get?

Back to the book. This book approaches sight reading with a very meticulous approach. It first examines a particular rhythm, then gives tons of differnet lines that go with that rhythm.

This book is in my hands at some point the day after school. My reading has improved drastically since I bought this book.

All in all, if you want to be able to read, buy this book and play away!

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Melodic Rhythms for Guitar, January 14, 2006

By 

P. Barnes (Wellington, New Zealand) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Melodic Rhythms for Guitar (Paperback)

This is a useful and challenging book, extremely helpful as a structure for mastering the discipline of playing tight rhythm in a multi-guitar group. To some extent the principles are simple common sense that could be worked out without any book, but Leavitt's exercises provide a ready-planned progressive development path that helps a student to get the balance between perfecting what they can already do and pushing on to try new things.

The print quality of this book is adequate but not great - the paper is coarse and the ink is smudged in some places, especially stave lines and 'full-body' notes (crotchets and quavers). In other places (particularly titles and explanatory text) the ink is under-applied, leaving the text faint and therefore harder to read.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Hokey Melodies but Useful, October 29, 2008

By 

Slo-Hand - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Melodic Rhythms for Guitar (Paperback)

I wouldn't be caught dead playing any of these exercises in anyone else's presence but you can always reharmonize and throw out the childish phrases once you've mastered the exercises and then they can be interesting assuming you know how to do that. This book forces you to think in terms of rhythm which can be immensely helpful to your improvisational skills. You get many variations on 4/4 and 3/4 time but no grace notes, 16th notes,sextuplets etc. You can always play around with those variations once you master the basics in at least a few positions and octaves. I suppose this book is aimed at beginning to intermediate guitar students(beginners could play these melodies while I think it would take an intermediate student to play the chordal accompanyments which are pretty good especially with the suggested extentions. The reason I bought the book is it gave me ideas just reading through the teaser pages and I wasn't disappointed when It arrived in the mail. It will help your sight reading skills but if that's all your interested in, you've only brushed on the book's potential. A more advanced follow up book would be nice which would include more advanced rhythmic concepts and perhaps cooler melodies and harmonizations.