Blues You Can Use (Blues You Can Use) by John Ganapes, John N Ganapes Summary and Reviews
|
List Price: Our Price: $11.97 You Save: $7.98 (40%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of Blues You Can Use (Blues You Can Use)
Book Review: Cool!!
Summary: 5 Stars
This book is a must have for anyone learning to play blues style guitar.
The lessons are all small enough to master relatively quickly. Yet they are also quite powerful because they show you how to move the same lesson all over the neck of the guitar. Exactly what I was hoping for from the book.
If you are trying to decide which book to use to help you learn to play some blues, this is the one!
Book Review: Good Teaching Format
Summary: 4 Stars
I really like the way the material of blues guitar is presented in this book. The best thing about the book is that it first teaches a critical part of blues guitar and then give you a song in so you actually see what you learned in action. I think this is the best way to teach material because it keeps the player interested. There is a wealth of info for beginners but anyone should buy this book.Book Review: Blues book for the clueless
Summary: 4 Stars
Overall I enjoyed this book and thought it was very useful. Before reading this book I was clueless about the blues. This book has given me a basic understanding blues guitar including the major and minor pentatonic scales and blues chord progressions.
What keeps this book from being excellent is its song selection. Most of the songs, which are intended to illustrate the concepts presented, are uninspiring and kind of boring.
Book Review: Excellent Guitar Book
Summary: 5 Stars
This man is a supurb teacher. Shows how the different (5) patterns of the Major and Minor pentatonic scales (and blues scales) are connected so that you can play all over the neck in any key. Also, shows the most common blues chords with rhythm patterns, complete song studies and riffs, plus an audio CD. He presents this material is an easy to understand format.Book Review: No more "Can't play the blues" blues!
Summary: 5 Stars
First, it should be said that you need a basic understanding of the guitar and know some open chord forms to jump right into this series of books. With that limitation, I can say without a doubt that this is the easiest, best organized, and best presented introduction to electric blues that I have found. The tunes in the lessons start out fairly simple and gradually become more complex, as you progress through the book.
Most books just toss you into the "centre of the swimming pool" and tell you to "SWIM!" This series systematically progresses you through the lessons, introducing theory and more complex chords and technique only at the point that you should be ready for it. This, of course, assumes you use good judgement and not rush things. Take your time (as the book directs you to do) and learn each lesson thoroughly before going on to the next one. At times, it may feel like you are moving too slowly, but by all chances you are not.
If I could change one thing about the CD, it would have one more track for each song/lesson that did not have the lead track included. Either that or it should have the lead track panned over to one stereo channel and the backing on the other stereo channel, as many other instructional CDs do. However, this is NOT a show stopper.
Is this everything you need to know about blues guitar? ABSOLUTELY NOT! Is this everything you need to get started with electric blues guitar? If you know your "basics" then the answer is ABSOLUTELY YES! Personally, I would still recommend (regardless of whether you are working with an instructor or not)that you go through a good method book (Hal Leonard, Mel Bay, whatever one you like) as well as ear training, separate theory book, and sightreading. This is not a "one stop shopping" book. It is an EXCELLENT book to get you playing blues tunes FAST, but you will need to go a good bit beyond this book to sound like Clapton or Stevie Ray.
The bottom line is that I HIGHLY recommend this book for the person that likes to get to the meat of things quickly and not go the slower academic route. This book teaches you about Pentatonic and Blues scales, but does not really concentrate much on knowing the NOTE NAMES. This is also important, so don't rely strictly on learning the scale patterns and not knowing the notes. Your phrasing should be based around the scales, chord tones, AND target notes, if you want to sound like a pro. However, you don't need to understand all that just to get going. This book will provide what you need to get going!
New Blues players... THIS is your starting line! It is the best of its kind that I have found! Even if you are completely new to guitar, you should be playing your first blues song in a month or so. If you have been playing a little while, you will have the first song nailed in a week or so. Now you have no more reason to have the "Can't play the blues" blues...
Roadhouse Blue