Definitive text books
Come to realise that whilst I've got *lots* of little collected snippets etc of things to reference for lessons, I could really do with some definitive textbooks for various styles, techniques, methods, theory etc.
Anyone got any suggestions to start building a decent, organised library.
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Guthrie Govan's Creative Guitar volume one and two are both superb books. They aren't full on guitar bibles (it says as much in the foreword), but if you really want to break down your technique and understand the mechanics of how you play and get a lot of inspiration of how other people play then it's a superb pair of books.
There isn't one definitive work as guitar is very genre specific.
For the rock/shred thing then the Govan books are good.
I quite like Frank Gambales technique books one and two. I'm not a 3 note a string player and so some of the examples don't fit into the way I've learnt the guitar (but that's not necessarily a bad thing either!) but the concepts are sound and really consolidate a lot of Jazz principles and sounds.
I've had a lot of use out of Mickey Bakers 'Jazz guitar'.
For reading - M.T. Szymczak's 'Reading contemporary guitar rhythms'
For classical - Segreras study books 1-6
Last edited by stratcat; 13th January 2013 at 08:18 PM.
Hmmm, whilst I can appreciate his technique his music bores me worse than rigid. Are they of use if you're not into his thing?Originally Posted by monquixote
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Yep, that's why I'm starting to build a library
I spent a lot of time with the Gambale Guitar Player stuff in the '80s, was very useful to integrate sweeping without getting bogged down in arpeggios as everyone seemed to at the time.
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The first one, certainly. He's great at explaining what players do and why, and doesn't just focus on how he plays himself, like many other purveyors instructional products do. GG teaches that many roads lead to Rome, and that Rome will be in a different place for each individual.
Absolutely.
It's not a "Shred book" or a "Playing like Guthrie book" it basically goes over every element of playing technique breaks it down and gives you lots of examples. Book 1 is more basic techniques and book two goes into the more advanced stuff. Book two has some bits on tapping, but it's really only one chapter of many.
Cheers guys, I shall make a start with the GG books then.
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If you are looking for serious Theory I would suggest
Jazz Theory by Mark Levine.
Then Ted Greenes Chord Chemistry.
and finally Scales and Modes by Cliff Douse.
Great books with little to fault.
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For every difficult and complex question there is an answer that is simple, easily understood and wrong.
um... Mark Levine's Jazz Theory is good - but it's really a theoretical view of the history of Jazz, I like the way it follows Jazz's progression but it's not an average theory book and it has little to commend itself particularly to the guitar.
Chord Chemistry is to music theory what logarithmic tables are to mental arithmetic. Ted said himself, in order to extemporise the contents of the book it'll need about 10 years study. Modern Chord Progressions is a great book but even that seems to illicit WTF!! comments from non-Jazz players.
But as I reread the OP's request, there's nothing to say he wants to learn anything from these books, simply wants a library - so yeah -these books look great in that kind of library.
Equally fitting for a library would be:
Wayne Krantz - Improvisers OS.
Jack Zuckers - Sheets of Sounds.
Pat Martino - Linear Expressions.
Nicholas Slonimsky - Thesaurus of Moderns Scales and Melodic Patterns
Reginald Smith Brindle - Serial Composition
Bret Wilmott - Time for the Future - Polyrythms in Music, Harmonic Extensions
these look like great books and people often look at them and say 'oooh'
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