Concepts: Arranging for Fingerstyle Guitar (The Howard Morgen Fingerstyle Jazz Series)

I teach classical guitar but know very little about jazz guitar. In my constant quest to become a better overall guitarist, I bought this book to help me learn more about jazz guitar. I must say that it is loaded with very useful information, and has about 48 great songs to play in jazz style. I greatly appreciate that all songs are written in music notation, so if you cannot read music then this book may not be of much help to you since there is NO TAB. But, there are chord diagrams above the notation so that should help somewhat.I have no serious complaints about this book at all. The reason I am only giving it 4 stars instead of 5 is because it desperately needs an accompanying CD. Although I am quite good at playing classical pieces, (mainly pieces which don't have a jazz rhythm), I am struggling to get the "feel" of the jazz beat. I don't come by it naturally and I really wish I could hear some of these songs played in a jazz style because I tend to revert back to straight rhythm. It has 2 pages of rhythmic practice which I can do very well, but something doesn't carry over well when I play the songs. It also has a lot of music theory information and guitar techniques (harmonics for example) which can only be good for a guitarist to understand. It has 188 pages of very useful information and several pages on alternative rhythms which I will check out in more detail.If you can read guitar notation, and already have even a little jazz experience, then you should have few problems, if any, with this book, though it is challenging. I've had no jazz experience other than the hell I went through in my improvisation class in music school.Also, and this has nothing to do with the book, but it took several weeks for my book to arrive.

I actually didn't read that this was a Jazz book in the description, I may not have purchased it as I had purchased too many poorly written Jazz books in the past. They had all seemed to assume you were quite familiar with Jazz chords, which I am not. However I am glad that I purchased this, as it provides very good information on how to create song arrangements on the guitar.For example on the section for creating the bassline, it goes in progression from simple root note lines to walking lines, and goes into the different types of walking lines and how they are created. I have not found this info on the other books I had looked at or purchased before. So for that information alone I felt that the book was worth the purchase. I recommend it for anyone interested in creating arrangements, whether or not they are interested in Jazz or not.

Howard"s book will get you writing you own arrangement of popular and jazz tunes. Teaches you to write simple arrangement to highly complex piano like arrangements with nice harmonies and substitions You will be armed with the skill of say a Kelly Velleau a great finger style arranger minus the beat tap ideas. Check out his arrangement out on YouTube. If you never thought you could arrange your favorite song buy this book you need nothing else. No more paying or searching the internet for tab arrangement because now you know ...the secret. Great book just brought my second copy!

This is an excellent book that teaches more than just arranging for guitar. Mr Morgen included some very beautiful arrangements that you can learn and enjoy right from the start. Even the easy exercises sound really good and I spent hours learning them.If you are interested in arranging for guitar, the book is arranged in a manner that brings you through that subject step by step with many examples and assigments you can try.I love the book and it was well worth the money. Jazz for guitar is simply addictive. One of the best guitar books ever. Thanks Mr Morgen!

Plenty of stuff to study for the intermediate player

This book delivers a mother load of high impact information that is useful immediately by showing you all of the chordal arrangement concept you will ever need to know! Also, this book will teach you how to assemble a chord melody arrangement starting with the first melody note to the last, step by step bar by bar presentation. By using the concepts found in this book, you will quickly begin creating stunning Joe Pass, Oscar Peterson and Art Tatum type substitutions and reharmonizations for any standard. Tab is included...If you are new to chord melody playing but not a beginner guitarist, then I suggest you try Fred Sokolw book entitled, "Jazzing It Up: How to Improvise with Jazz Chords on Guitar". Those arrangements are great chop builder and a great intro into this subject matter. this book is also available on amazon..As for this book, it is geared towards those players who want to create solo arrangements, not just play them. It assumes the player already has a history of playing in this style but lacks the how-to knowledge with creating them on a professional level.cheers

Concepts is a must have for anyone interested in finally peeking "behind the curtain" to learn about solo guitar. Classical guitarists, jazz guitarists, rock and country players can finally learn what everyone wants to know how to do. The arrangements of tunes in this book are excellent exercises to demonstrate concepts like walking bass, chord substitution, reharmonization, and more. But also, they are "ready to go" arrangements you can learn and use at your next performance. Play one and you'll instantly look up and go "oh, that's how they do it!" Other books I've used were full of data, but left me still wondering how to apply the information. This book puts it all together.

If you want to learn about fingerstyle guitar then get this book. It covers technique and theory. Superb.

Dieses Lehrbuch hat 189 DIN A4 Seiten.Unterrichtet wird, das Arrangieren von Jazz-Standards im Fingerstyle.Es beginnt mit Fingerübungen für die Unabhängigkeit von Daumen und übrigen Fingern.Dann geht es um Tonleitern für Soli. Danach um die Entwicklung von Walking Bass - Linien.Dann Auswahl und Wechsel von Tonarten, Austausch von Akkorden.Alle Lektionen werden mit Hilfe von Standards vermittelt. Daher hat man damals vermutlich auch keine Demo-CD erstellt.Denn in den USA sind die Nummern unter Jazz-Studenten nicht erklärungsbedürftig.Die Stücke sind in Notenschrift abgedruckt. Zusätzlich gibt es Grafiken der verwendeten Akkorde.TABS gibt es nicht. Allerdings sind die Akkorde offen und einfach gehalten worden.Voraussetzungen: Englisch, mehrere Jahre Gitarre nach Noten, Routine im Fingeranschlag, Grundkenntnisse der Harmonielehre.Die Kenntnis der Standard-Melodien erleichtert das Verständnis enorm.

A great place to start should you want to learn how to compose for guitar as a solo instrument. It helps if you have already learned how to play classical guitar. Finger style guitarists will enjoy it as well, most likely.