Customer Reviews

Red Hot Chili Peppers - Stadium Arcadium: Special Edition Guitar Book with 2 CDs (Guitar Recorded Versions)

5 star:		(11)
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This is a fantastic concept, executed nearly perfectly. Not only are the guitar tabs spot-on accurate (at least as I can tell), but the isolated guitar/bass CD tracks are very revealing. I don't even count myself as a Chili Pepper fanatic. However, Frusciante is easily one of my favorite contemporary guitarists. Stadium Arcadium may not be the Chilis' best record, but it demonstrates nearly every style and technique that Frusciante is known for. When you break down the guitar parts, it's surprising how simple his style is, though Frusciante is a master of layered guitar tracks (which the included CD's really help demonstrate). I can't play many of the riffs and leads as fast as the recorded versions, but they make terrific exercises and ideas for scale and lead practice. The CD's themselves are even a worthwhile listen if you're interested in recording and mixing. If you're a guitar-playin' Chili Pepper nut, this is a no-brainer of comsmic dimensions.

Please note: there is a separate bass book avaiable, and both of the books are available without the CD's. However, if you're ordering from Amazon, you'll get an awesome price for the CD edition, and I highly recommend it.

This special edition includes CD's with John and Flea's isolated guitar and bass parts. It makes hearing what you're supposed to play easy to learn, and easy to follow along with the book without the distraction of the vocals or drums. Thanks Mr. Frusciante for thinking of us guitar players and what we want!

i own other guitar and bass books of the chillies and damn! this is by far the most detailed and precisely accurate transcription of their music i've seen!!!!

a must own for any fan of rhcp and especially of john's guitar playing....

plus: the cd tracks are the actual album tracks, not some other guy playing the songs!!! awesome quality

ps: good luck with snow....hahahahahahahahhaaaa

pss: any tips on finding the bass book without the cd's???????? since they come with this book i don't need two pairs....

Don't get me wrong, the book is great by itself. It's clear and complete, and it seems accurate as far as I can tell. Plus, the effects that John used are listed within each song, so you can discover how he created all those cool sounds on the album.

But, the real gem here is the CD's. The vocals, drums, and everything else are stripped away so only John's guitar and Flea's bass remain. It's like listening to a whole different album, and it's awesome! Sometimes I felt like the guitar and bass were drowned out on Stadium Arcadium itself, but you can really appreciate them when they are isolated on these CD's. What a great learning tool!

Just two notes:

1) Two CD's come with the book, and each song on the CD's features both the guitar and the bass together. So it's not like there's one CD for guitar and then a separate CD for bass. I was kind of confused about that before I bought it.

2) The book itself only contains parts for guitar, so if you're interested in learning the bass parts, you should buy the bass version, which comes with the same CD's but has the bass book instead of the guitar book. Happy playing!

I'm a longtime RHCP fan and a guitar player (obviously since I bought the tab!). I have both the Mother's Milk and Blood Sugar Sex Magik tablature books and have learned almost all of the songs in both. That said, I was a little hesitant in ordering the Stadium Arcadium book for two concerns: 1) the album is so effects laden, it may be hard to reproduce at home; 2) usually, when audio is provided on a CD with a tab book, examples are truncated snippits or examples of songs taken out of context--not very helpful, IMHO. Let me cut to the chase: buy this book with the CDs! The CDs contain ALL 2 SA discs with FULL songs from beginning to end sans drums and vocals. You get to hear John Frusciante's guitar parts and Flea's bass interacting together for all of the songs. I'm hearing things being played that I've never noticed before on the original SA release. Actually, what the recordings have confirmed is a suspicion I've had that SA was mixed horribly for the final release... a little too smooth and compressed, finally killing the BSSM era peppers sound. However, listen to something like "Hump De Bump" on this book's audio and you will hear guitar and bass every bit as raw, inventive, and funky as anything from BSSM. Why did this get lost in the final release? The tabs are pretty spot on, too. I've noticed a few voicing inconsistencies with JF's live playing of the songs... but this is a minor quibble. This book is a must (for this price) for any RHCP fan that plays bass or guitar. The audio is also an awesome stand-alone look into the writing and musical process of a inventive band of musicians.

This book is all we, really Red Hot Chili Peppers and John Frusciante's fans, needed.

It comes with the exact tabs of what John plays and with the Guitar ORIGINAL recorded version of each track.

Then you can listen while read the music in the book.

FASTASTIC. I'll give 6 stars for this review, but only 5 is avaible. so... 5 STARTS.

This book is a real treasure. The CDs that it comes with are the ORIGINAL TRACKS! That means what your hear is the original Flea and John, not someone else. However, this book was a bit disappointing to me, only because it's too hard for me. This book is probably about, Intermediate to Advanced.

Something even better than these CDs (though, it is hard to get a digital copy of this), is FLEA's youtube page. He is listed as IIIIIFLEAIIIII, and he has guitar master tracks for every song from stadium arcadium (except slow cheetah!), and all sorts of mixes for all songs from BloodSugarSexMagik, and a few others.

If you're an aspiring guitarist and you love John Frusciante's work on this album then this book + CD compilation could be worth its weight in gold for you. The transcriptions are dead-on and the CDs give you John's guitars and Flea's bass lines with the faint sounds of the drums in the far background. Actually it's a great tool for studying Flea's work as well but in this particular book the tabs are only for guitars. And as everyone has already noted, these are the real tracks from the double album, not recreations by studio players.

I've been particularly amazed at how many subtle nuances come through when you take away the vocals and drums. Sometimes I listen to these CDs in my car INSTEAD of the official album release because they're that aesthetically pleasing. You feel like you just walked into a room where John and Flea are jamming out. This is probably the best tab book ever released for ANY album. Highly recommended.

The bass and guitar tracks on the CDs really help to identify the individual notes, riffs and chords. Extremely worth it!

I am a big fan of the RHCP's and enjoy trying to replicate their sound. I am by no means a good guitarist but still have a lot of fun going through the book and playing pieces of their songs. The tab appears to be very accurate but I am not sure that it is 100% (still, good enough for me). I found it very useful to look at some of the lessons on Youtube as an aide to the book.