Customer Reviews

Mel Bay presents Fluid Pentatonics for Guitar (Mbgu)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book will help you break out of the traditional bluesy-sounding pentatonic box-licks and teach you to how to play flowing lines all over the neck in a style more reminiscent of Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, and Eric Johnson (though there are no licks from those players).

All of the examples are fun to play, very musical and immediately applicable to your playing. It's not just a collection of patterns; by studying and playing through all the examples you'll learn how to approach playing fluidly all over the neck and you'll know how to make up your own lines and sequences.

It will be helpful (though not necessary if you're super-motivated and hard-working) if you're already familiar with the traditional box shapes (Quinn reviews them at the beginning of the book) and have a basic understanding of understanding of the music theory behind them. This will help you understand how each set of studies is organized and make it easier to learn them.

This book is for intermediate to advanced players. If you're still struggling with basic technique such as alternate picking, hammers, pulls and slides, it'll be a hard slog.

There are a few typos in some of the tabs and a couple of the studies are mislabeled (let's hope Mel Bay fixes these in the next printing!), but it's pretty easy to figure out the right fingering if you look at overall pattern.

This is a great book, highly recommended.

I picked up this book while browsing through a local music store. Like many guitarists, I learned pentatonics early in my guitar playing. Also like many guitarists, their use was limited to playing over a 12 bar blues, or soloing over rock songs because I didn't know anything else. As a result they started to sound stale, and I moved on to other things. Of course, a listen to many guitarists will show that pentatonics are much more versatile than that...

To make use of the book, you need to be familiar with the five pentatonic box patterns. If you don't know these, take the time to learn them. They are useful in all types of music. There is a brief review of these before getting started on the exercises.

The first section of the book gives you seven different shifting patterns. Each pattern moves you through the five different box patterns, moving along the neck (from the nut to the bridge and back). He gives you the patterns starting with each of the box patterns, and each pattern is repeating. Once you have the pattern under your fingers, you can start anywhere within the pattern. Even learning one of these sets will help you fly across the fretboard.

The second section of the book give you 15 non-shifting sequences. These patterns move across the fretboard (from the sixth string to the first string and back), and stay within one position. Each of the patterns is presented in one box pattern, and it is up to you to move them to the other four fingerings.

The third section ties together the first two sections, in what is labeled side-shifting. These patterns not only move across the fretboard, but along the fretboard through three different box patterns as well. He ends this section with five whole neck studies.

There are two more sections, Hexatonic Studies and Dominant Pentatonic Runs, and I am sure I will get there eventually. There are also a couple of etudes at the end of the book that combine what you have learned in this book with some techniques from other books in the series.

I'll be honest, at first glance, the book isn't very exciting. I don't believe it is meant to be. The goal is to help you become more fluid with your pentatonics, and use them in a more musical way. There is nothing flashy about the book, and it's important to note that the author doesn't do the work for you. All the exercises are presented in a couple of different keys, and to get full use of the information, you need to move the patterns to the other keys yourself. He gives you recommended fingerings, but it is ultimately up to you to figure out what works best for yourself. What the author does do is give you a nice appendix with not only recommendations on how to use the book, but practice tips that will help with all your guitar playing. This book is definitely not a "be good at pentatonics overnight" course, and expect to spend a lot of time with it. Not a week or a month, but probably months or years. If you blaze through Fluid Pentatonics, then you are most likely already a pentatonic wizard. Don't get me wrong, you will start benefiting from the book right away, but it will take a long time before you can say you are done with it. The subtitle is 84 Melodic Studies for Rock Guitar, but the lessons are definitely not limited to rock. While the exercises in here are not overly complex or technical, that does not make them easy. It is probably better suited for guitarists with some experience, but a beginner should be able to integrate them into their routine with some guidance from a teacher, or a lot of patience. Again, just don't expect results overnight, because it will take some work. I would recommend it for anyone who wants to become more fluid and fast with their pentatonics, regardless of genre.

This isn't a review as much as a complaint. I have only just received my book and barely started working in it, and already I am frustrated with the ERRORS.

Why is it that method books are so poorly edited? I'm not terribly knowledgeable when it comes to playing guitar, so transcription errors can be deadly. We're not reading these books for entertainment-- as you would in a novel where a misspelled word is not that big a deal. This is a how-to, and if the editors gets it wrong, the students literally suffer.

I'm on exercise 1, measure 2, and already I'm trying to figure out what is intended.

First I will tell you that I have purchased at least 3 dozen guitar books, so I feel I can speak from experience when evaluating these items. I have been playing for over 40 years, so why do I still buy books? For the first 20 years of playing, I was content to stick with chords only as I am a composer and that was my focus. Over the last 10 years, I have been slowly (slowly because I am an adult now and can't just play all day) developing my soloing technique and theory foundation. I love thistuff, so one hurdle down 0 I like to read and practice. All that being said, I find that guitar books vary in disturbing ways - scales laid out in different patterns, different views on the best picking and other techniques, and worst of all, differences in the qyantity and quality of information included. There are a few authors out there preying on the knowledge hungry would be lead players with big promises and little useful info. There are others who have included a wealth of information but are devoid of explanations on how to apply the information, or the reader is required to have achieved a higher level of expertise than the marketing would suggest.

I bought the four books in Tim Quinn's "Fluid" series after checking out the TOC and sample pages, I also use the other reviews (taken with a grain of salt). I have been more than satisfied. These books deliver thorough coverage of each subject and do so without overly difficult language. Also, the tone of delivery is relaxed, encouraging, and JELPFUL. There are tons of useful tips for learning and applying the lassons. The additional audio on the CDs is 1. Good quality (not always the case) 2. Good musically (again the same) and 3. very useful, meaning the big 3 are included - examples of lessona, extended examples incorporating all of the lessons together and backing tracks to play to on your own forever.

One last thing, I have found that Tim will answer emails should you have a question. He doesn't answer overnight, but he did get back to me. A guy like this is quite busy I'm sure, and I don't believe in abusing this kind of thing because an author doesn't "owe" this to you, but I had a question and he answered, so he deserves credit for it. The thing I like most about this series is the focus on application and the way the material clears up how to apply scales in a concise manner that's not too technical, he finds an excellent balance between theory and application, though I also must add that there is a good amount of material here that teaches ways to use altered versions of the standard scales that you won't find everywhere, and again this is material that has great value for real-world application.

I recommend this entire series, I asked Tim about the recommended order of study, and though he said you can choose, he has found that the order the books are in is best. After seeing how the 4th book ties everything together, including using arpeggios with scales in solos, I agree. He really gives you a coomplete education in constructing solos using the pentatonic scales both horizontally and vertically on the fretboard. Using BOTH of these approaches is key to acquiring a command of your instrument and achieving the ability to use it as fluently as your voice.

I have books 1-3 and all of them are great. This book has gotten me out of my old boring sounding solos that always sounded the same just to a different beat. I have been starting each lesson at 60BPM and work my way up to 120, then I throw on a jam track and rock out what I learned in the lesson. Its has been very rewarding. These books may take a long time to work all the way through them but the great thing about them is you start seeing results almost instantly.

I agree with the first two reviews. Very helpful study material for people wanting to break out of the box pattern or learning how to navigate the fretboard. Grab a metronome and be patient. great book

I bought this book a few months ago and have been diligently working on the first scale in the book. That should give you an idea of what kind of book this is. I bought this book because I wanted to break out of box patterns. What I thought that would entail, and what that actually entailed are two different things. This book is not for beginners, but it is a great book. I've bought many guitar books, most ended up in the bottom of a box in my closet. I guess what makes this book different is that the exercises are challenging but doable if you have patience. You will be doing a lot of hammer-ons, pull-offs, and slides on each finger. Just learning the first scale (with guidance from my maestro guitar teacher, who approves of this book and he's difficult to please) revealed many flaws in my technique that I've been working on correcting.

This is a great book and will take you to the next level, but you have to work, have patience and learn how to relax. Developing those virtues will help you in all areas of your life, not simply your playing.

I haven't gone through the whole book yet but the first few exercises that I'm currently working on has really helped me visualize the patterns for the pentatonic scale. As stated in previous posts, there are some errors on the book. Overall though, it's a great book that will surely help me with my guitar playing.

Any guitarist who has learned the five pentatonic box shapes eventually gets into a rut before realizing that those shapes are the beginning, not the end of studying pentatonics. This is the best book I've found on how to "break out of the box" It starts with some great practice advice, then dives into sequences that are designed to create muscle memory that will take your fingers all over the neck.

It's not a beginners book. There are places where fingerings are suggested for you, but the author makes it clear that you need to make some decisions on your own.

Also, I have encountered two "typos". First off, the typos are the correct notes, and if you didn't notice them it wouldn't be much of a problem. Second, if you know the five pentatonic box shapes and keep in mind that the descending patterns should be mirror images of the ascending patterns, you'll figure them out and get past them very quickly. I even wrote to the author for clarification on this and he responded. [quinnguitar.com]

The book is so good and the typos are so meaningless that they won't stop me from giving the book 5 stars. It's way less than the cost of a lesson, and if I lost it I would buy it again.

The content of this book is terrific! The demonstrations on the CD are excellent! Minus a half star for tablature errors. With a little thought though it's not too difficult to figure out those errors. The exercises are very modern and sound great and are easily adaptable to your musical situation. They make me WANT to practice them because they sound so cool. The appendix is informative. This book is not for the absolute beginner however. A knowledge of the 5 pentatonic shapes is pretty much required (which the author mentions by the way). You can see him demo some of the content of his other books on U-tube. Not a lot of fluff. This book gets right down to the nitty gritty of making you a better player.