Customer Reviews

Scales Over Chords (Book and CD)

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

 

 

Excellent book. Not a beginners' book. Must have dexterority to play scales. I've been playing for 10 years, and this is helping to fill in gaps in my knowledge of scales and music theory. For me, this book is just what the doctor ordered. It will take me a few months to master this book, practicing/reading/studying approximately 1 hour per day.

Even if you don't read music, this book will be very helpful. Easy to understand. Explains relationships of scales and chords. Presents a logical way to learn these relationships for all scales and has many good practice studies in the last half of the book. The first few chapters may seem tedious to some but are the building blocks for the later chapters where things begin to really fit together. If you are looking for more than just a book on chord forms, get this book first

This book gives you what you expect, the knowledge to run
riffs and play in key, as well as understand how to create
your own lead runs based on a particular scale. the layout is easy to absorb it is not busy, a problem a lot of tutorials have.

Not a true beginners book. Quickly takes you to some advanced topics. Lots of good exercises and a complete treatment of scales. Worth buying.

A good tool for the beginning guitarist, however fails to go into more complex scale formations. Also, it includes very little music theory as to why the scales are formed how they are. If your just starting out, and can't read music, this is a great book for you.

I have been playing guitar for almost 2 years...after hearing Tim Reynolds play with Dave Matthews I decided I wanted to be able to do what Tim does...so I sought out to learn to improv and get a basis on some theory. So I was recommended this book by my local music store. I found the book really helpful...some of the excercises dont really go with the lesson so I just got my scale dictionary and did my own lessons but used the book as a background for theory. Pieces of the long puzzle started fitting in but this book fails to bring in enough of what it says to do...basically it doesnt go deep enough just skims the surface.

I really expected a lot from this book, especially from the claims on the cover and introduction. On the plus side, there is a lot of material here, and you can extract some useful information.

But the minuses outweigh the pluses. It is poorly written and disorganized. Often the illustrations are not explained in a way that makes any sense of them. Lots of material is thrown in, almost hastily it seems, that is very poorly explained. Lots of the material is poorly integrated.

Here is a random example. On page 41 they say "the secret to improvisation... is simple as ABC...as simple as knowing diatonic chords"!

Ok, so this section is important. Well, the next five pages say nothing about the guitar. Why is this a problem? Well in their "illustration" on page 42 they show how to build up chords-- great. But the second chord they build can't be played on the guitar as diagrammed (they build a D-F-A, and of course D and F are on the same string in the first position). So how am I supposed to apply this?

I am patient so I wade through the theory (which involves quoting lots of theory jargon that sounds great but doesn't really help understanding as much as more clearly written text-- but nothing is mentioned about the guitar). Then I get to page 46 where I hope there will be an illustration relevant to the guitar. Instead there is just (another) illustration of the scale of G, but they put a bunch of numbers above the scale. Instead of illustrating the points on page 45, they are suddenly talking about "extended dominant seventh chords" or "color" tones-- without any illustrations yet of the preceding 5 pages! They somehow use all the numbers above the scale of G to produce a chord that is a G(13). But they have done nothing to illustrate the previous 5 pages!

This describes the first 50 pages of the book-- disorganized, jumping from one topic to the next. I see some other people have gotten something out of this book. Maybe the second half is more practical and helpful-- if I ever get there I will edit my post.

I have played the guitar for just over 2 years, can read some music.

I ordered this book a couple of months ago and now I can comment. This is an excellent book to start the learning process of modes. Although it only discusses the modes in the first position it lays the ground work for advanced mode playing. It is especially helpful as the excercises blend the chords and melody into a system of sound that many other books are missing. If you are starting to learn modes and how they relate to chords and melody, this is a keeper.

Have had the book so long the audio companion was a cassette---sold separately. After years, decided to get practicing and reordered book with CD. The scales go fast after an oral announcement. The book labels the exercises differently than the audio i.e. Illustrations vs. Examples. AND there seem to be both. The audio track number is faintly listed within a headphone icon and to match scales in the right key you have to read through carefully. No skipping around!

On that note, I would have to say the combination of book and CD audio companion do not provide an intuitive interaction. After trying to learn to read for the guitar via classical techniques to little avail, the CAGED system for learning the fretboard has unlocked some mysteries.

The authors deserve kudos for the work they put into the lessons, apparently written before widespread Internet instruction. It is very linear in concept and incrementally arranged. With first edition c. 1994, apparently one of the first in the interactive methods field, and the content is really solid. Just know that you have to really read through the exercises to get what's in there--no skimming and scanning.

This is a succinct and serviceable--even useful--introduction to scales for the beginning guitarist--especially the beginning rock or jazz guitarist. Its form has its inherent limitations, of course, and only anhematonic (that is, "major" or "minor") pentatonic scales are included. The beginning guitarist might do well to start with this and then go on to PENTATONIC SCALES FOR THE JAZZ-ROCK KEYBOARDIST by Jeff Burns. (He should not be intimidated by the title.)