The Dorian Improvisation System


Book Description

Over more than two decades of playing guitar, I’ve come to see the Dorian scale as one of the most useful in modern music. More than just a mode of the major scale, it transcends genres and playing styles with its unmatched versatility, providing a pathway from rock and blues that extends all the way to funk and jazz fusion. What I want to show you in this book is just how versatile the Dorian scale is and how, by starting with the minor pentatonic, we can access a vast range of Dorian scales and be able to improvise over pretty much anything. If you know your minor pentatonic scale (or even if you don’t) and want to take it to the next level and beyond, this book will open the door to more inventive rock and blues soloing, as well as providing a way into funk and even fusion improvisation. I’ll also show you how to apply every scale/improvisational device in this book to chords and chord progressions. This is not a modes book; it’s an improvisation system featuring 100+ diagrams based on the Dorian scale through which you progressively learn how to access a wide variety of other scales and improvisational devices and techniques that you can apply to your playing straight away.




Guitar Hacks


Book Description

3NPS (three-note-per-string) scales, as used by legions of guitarists but popularized mainly by Joe Satriani, are one of the most efficient ways to navigate the fretboard and get your scales down IF you follow the guidelines in this book. As the name suggests, a 3NPS scale is any scale that contains three notes on each string, and as you'll see in this eBook, this makes for a very consistent way to map out scales on the guitar fretboard. What we’ve done here is revamped the 3NPS scale system and turned it into an incredibly effective means to learn a wide variety of scales all over the fretboard by streamlining the number of patterns, as well as the picking system. This is not a scale theory book, and contains no pentatonic scales. This is a quick and dirty (and very effective) method for learning 3NPS scales all over the fretboard; something to work on in the woodshed. It will improve your picking technique and speed. It does not require a great amount of thinking as you only need to learn two picking patterns, which is really one in two directions, and only three scale patterns instead of the usual seven per scale.




Improvise for Real


Book Description

Improvise for Real is a step-by-step method that teaches you to improvise your own music through progressive exercises that anyone can do. You'll learn to understand the sounds in the music all around you. And you'll learn to express your own musical ideas exactly as you hear them in your mind. The method starts with very simple creative exercises that you can begin right away. As you progress, the method leads you on a guided tour through the entire world of modern harmony. You will be improvising your own original melodies from the very first day, and your knowledge will expand with each practice session as you explore and discover our musical system for yourself. Improvise for Real brings together creativity, ear training, music theory and physical technique into a single creative daily practice that will show you the entire path to improvisation mastery. You will learn to understand the sounds in the music all around you and to improvise with confidence over jazz standards, blues songs, pop music or any other style you would like to play. And you'll be jamming, enjoying yourself and creating your own music every step of the way. The method is open to all instruments and ability levels. The exercises are easy to understand and fun to practice. There is no sight reading required, and you don't need to know anything about music theory to begin. Already being used by both students and teachers in more than 20 countries, Improvise for Real is now considered by many people to be the definitive system for learning to improvise. If you have always dreamed of truly understanding music and being able to improvise with complete freedom on your instrument, this is the book for you




Beyond Pentatonics


Book Description

A lot of students ask me how they can take their improvisation skills to the next level and move beyond pentatonic scales and into modes and arpeggios. My response is to tell them not to abandon pentatonic scales in favor of modes and other soloing devices, but to use them as a springboard and a solid foundation from which to expand their harmonic awareness. If you play rock, blues and even jazz, you’ll be using pentatonic scales for the rest of your life, so there’s no need to discard them! In this book, we’ll be using the much-loved minor pentatonic scale as the basis for learning and having a quick way to access the modes of the major scale, as well as the basic seventh chord arpeggios. This means that when you go to improvise, you'll have a vast array of options with which to go beyond pentatonic soloing. Work through this book daily and I guarantee you a smooth and painless transition from pentatonics to incorporating modes and arpeggios into your playing.




Improvising Without Scales


Book Description

In this remarkable book, Carl Verheyen teaches his philosophy and techniques for improvising. Rather than hashing out scales, Carl teaches how to play lines with strong melodic content. By approaching melodies through intervals and chord qualities, infinite lines can be generated. Carl stresses the importance of collecting lines that can be used in improvised settings. These lines and examples will provide outstanding material for any guitarist yearning for melodic ideas and inspiration. Presented in standard notation and tab.




Alternative Pentatonics


Book Description

I actually wrote this book as a practice guide for myself because I wanted a way to get different and outside sounds using pentatonic scales, as well as to improve my chops and have a huge variety of new sounds at my fingertips to play over the chords you see 90% of the time such as major/major7, minor/minor7, and dominant chords, among others. As well as being a scales book Alternative Pentatonics is also a method to practice improvising over common chords using uncommon groups of five notes. Five notes are somewhere between an arpeggio and a scale, as well as being the ideal number of notes to craft some really nice phrasing (in my opinion), as I’m sure you realized when you first learned your minor pentatonic scale and started jamming over a 12-bar blues. This book contains 28 new pentatonic scales divided into chord types so that you’ll know exactly what chords you can use them over. For the intermediate player: this book will give you plenty of new and interesting options for playing over common chords and force you out of standard pentatonic scales and/or the major scale modes. For the more advanced player: this book could be more about exploring possibilities than learning scale patterns; in fact, I would suggest that advanced players avoid even remembering the patterns in this book. Instead, they can be used to explore the improvisational terrain and find new sounds, then filed away in your subconscious and allowed to seep into your playing while you’re in the throes of improvisation. So, if you’re stuck in a soloing rut or are looking for new sounds, outside sounds, exotic sounds, or even a few downright weird sounds, this is the book for you.




The Chord Scale Theory & Jazz Harmony


Book Description

Comprehensive textbook based on the Chord Scale Theory as taught at the Berklee College of Music.




Jazz Guitar Soloing Concepts


Book Description

Jazz-guitarskole for sologuitar.




Modern Chords


Book Description

One of the world's great jazz guitarists, Vic Juris shares his insight into the wonderful world of harmony in this book. Not for the fainthearted, Vic teaches polychords and intervallic structures derived from the major, minor, harmonic minor, melodic minor and harmonic major scales in this must have jazz guitar book. Each section has etudes that will help students integrate each concept into their own playing. Includes access to online audio that gives students the opportunity to hear and play along with these cutting edge concepts




Hacking the CAGED System


Book Description

The Hacking the CAGED System series was inspired by my own,and other guitarist’s frustrations with the infamous CAGED System for learning guitar. It all started back in Music College in the early 2000s, at the ACM in Guildford (UK) to be precise, where we were handed, by none other than Guthrie Govan, an inch-thick binder containing all manner of shapes and patterns for the CAGED system, including chords and arpeggios. I duly slaved over the book while burning the midnight oil for an entire semester and while my technique improved no end, I just couldn’t turn those patterns into music,or connect them to what I was learning in music theory class.Fast forward to 2016, and with the benefit of hindsight from more than 20 years of playing, I’ve been able to look at the CAGED system from a different perspective, and one that will hopefully make it a useful system for anyone wishing to learn it. The CAGED system has many flaws, but these can be hacked and rectified to turn it into a powerful system for understanding how the guitar fretboard works, leading to a versatile, and above all, functional knowledge of chords, arpeggios, scales and modes, and key signatures. What’s in Book 1? Book 1 teaches you the basic major scale forms, shows you where to find the basic diatonic chords as well as seventh chords.We then venture into intervals which are the key to making your solos sound like you know what you’re doing. Next we bring out the arpeggios,and finally the modes. Everything is tied together using key signatures as a framework to build up a practical knowledge of chords, scales,arpeggios and modes on the guitar.