BOOKS & DVDs The Playmusic guide to the best in music tuition books and DVDs…
This month two diverse but fascinating new titles from Mel Bay aimed at guitarists and ukelele players…
JAZZ PENTATONICS Author: Bruce Saunders
SRP: £13.99
Skill Level: Intermediate to Advanced ISBN: 078667167X
Contact: Mel Bay Ltd. 020 8214 1222
www.melbay.com
UKELELE BLUEGRASS
SOLOS Author: Ondřej Šárek SRP: £7.99
Skill Level: Intermediate to Advanced ISBN: 0786682965
Contact: Mel Bay Ltd. 020 8214 1222
www.melbay.com
T
his book and accompanying CD offers a great way for guitarists to gain a fast track into adding a more sophisticated fl avour to your pentatonic scale-based soling. The humble pentatonic scale gets a thorough work out and the lessons are divided into specifi c sections targeting the important note groups: minor 7, dominant 7 (major), minor 7(b5) and major (b6). The accompanying CD demonstrates the pentatonic exercises at slow and normal speeds, making it relatively easy to follow the more complex scale patterns, which are written down in standard musical notation and tablature. We found that the best way to approach this book is to identify an area where you want to improve – minor 7 scales, for example - and then use the book to help weave in those mysterious magic ingredients that help to elevate your playing to a new level, breathing fresh life into your repertoire of standard blues-based licks. Of course, when dealing with jazz, the blues is never far away and this book simply helps to add some new ideas into your existing musical vocabulary. The exercises and patterns defi nitely help every guitarist to gain a new appreciation of the pentatonic scale’s power, expression and versatility. Not exactly a barrel of laughs, perhaps, but then again this is meant to be a tool for some pretty serious study and sticking with it will deliver some very pleasing results!
Easily understandable, and genuinely useful, in our opinion this book is essential for every guitarist looking to expand his or her arsenal of cool, tasteful licks. PM
34 pickup
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luegrass or newgrass, the acoustic revolution continues to gather apace as more and more musicians discover (and rediscover) the joys of acoustic music. The simple driving rhythms of bluegrass make it a very accessible music for beginners who just want to grab hold of a G chord and hang on for dear life but bluegrass soloing is pretty complex and quite daunting, especially when played on an instrument with a fret board no bigger than a school ruler! The Ukulele isn’t traditionally associated with bluegrass but as this diminutive instrument’s popularity continues to soar, we fi nd the ‘uke’ often supplanting the mandolin in the traditional bluegrass line up. This book by Czech author and ukulele specialist Ondřej Šárek contains solos arranged around 19 standards from the bluegrass repertoire, including the fi endishly tricky Sailors Hornpipe (more commonly known as the theme tune to Blue Peter). Novice ukulele pluckers might fi nd some of these fi nger-twisting workouts a bit daunting but more experienced players and especially those who already know their way around the mandolin shouldn’t have too much trouble adjusting to these licks, which are specially written for ukulele. If you already play the uke and want to improve your dexterity on the instrument, these exercises will defi nitely put you to the test. Nevertheless this book is still a great way to help expand your fret board knowledge as well as building up a nice stash of tasty licks. PM
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