Review by Dave Flomberg The Gift of Jazz Magazine August 1996 Nol.2 Num.8 Fingerstyle Jazz Guitar: Teaching Your Guitar to Walk by Paul Musso Mel Bay Publications
Guitarists! Are you sick and tired of playing the same licks. Are you bored of regurgitating what thousands of rock stars have already done? Jazz is the path of least resistance to solve your problems. Paul Musso, professor of guitar studies at the University of Colorado at Denver and Community College of Denver, has laid it all out for the aspiring jazz guitarist in his new book titled, "Fingerstyle Jazz Guitar, Teaching Your Guitar to Walk." The ace-in-the-hole for this instructional is that it comes with a CD which contains all of Musso's exercises as he presents the music in the book. This way, after you play a written selection, you can check your work against what Musso plays. This form of aural and visual education speeds up the learning process immensely, and it's as if Musso was in the room teaching you in person. The theory study in the book is extensive without being overwhelming to the novice jazz guitarist, and Musso's selections of aural presentations sound hip enough that you'll want to learn all of it as quickly as possible. The crux of the book is how to walk and hit your chords simultaneously, something Jimi Hendrix was noted for, and while that style of guitar playing seems unbelievably difficult, Musso details well how to accomplish this. In addition, he presents some really good voicings and chordal structures above and beyond your straight ahead 12-bar styles, which makes the music a whole lot more interesting to learn. On top of that, he covers some very important aspects of jazz chord structures and styles, such as 2-5-1 changes and Latin stylings. Musso ends with an explanation of parallel structures that is a nice, tidy wrap-up for the book. |
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