Teaser - "The ultimate Gypsy Jazz guitar companion" is coming.

crookedpinky

Yep, I agree with Adrian it is very hard to read. The fret diagrams look "compressed". I bought the recent Sansone book on improv and it also suffers from having a fancy font which detracts the attention away from the content.

harrye

Looks interesting Anthony, I'm with the other guys on clarity though. Look forward to seeing the end result.

All the best

Harry

anthon_74

Hey thanks everybody... Yes, I'm painstakingly going through all the pages and changing the font to a more normal readable font....
I got a little carried away with the neat looking font...I won't make that mistake again.

And yes, Dennis, there will be plenty of editing done, both for grammar/spelling etc, and for music mistakes.

Anthony

mandocat

I'm a student of Anthony's and I got to look at a mostly complete version of his book that he gave me to help proof read. I'm someone who has collected quite a few instruction books in search of a path to improvisation. Of course there is no magic method book that will give you the ability to improvise without a lot of thoughtful playing on your part but I think this book provides a lot of good material to build a foundation. I would compare it to the Daniel Givone or Stephane Wrembel books in the way it emphasizes learning the 5 major and minor arpeggios and relates all the licks and scales back to those. He hasn't asked me to help promote this or anything - just my opinion from what I've seen.

anthon_74

I have a question for anyone who might have an opinion. What is more important, and therefore should be earlier in a beginning to intermediate gypsy jazz course book ? Gypsy style vocabulary phrases, OR Phrase creation material such as Diminished scales, harmonic minor scales, and/or enclosures ??

Anthony

rob.cuellari

I would just consider what people already have access to. There are many books already that have all the scales and arpeggios. I would have some of the other guys with books and other teaching experience what to cut and what is missing. Likewise I would ask some of the intermediate audience you're trying to market to for their opinions before finalizing. As a former teacher myself, what I think is an ultimate guide is far removed from the novice /intermediate.

Other than that just use your best judgment.

Jim Kaznosky

For me, there is material out there that give the essential elements and that flat out give licks to users. Gonzalo was closest to the idea in his two books of how to create phrases from source material. He goes into it in the beginning of volume two, but there could be more exposition on this idea of how to create phrases.

anthon_74

okay, misunderstandings here. I'm not asking for what I should cut from the book, I'm just trying to decide what order to put it all in. I have a section on gypsy style phrases as well as one on harmonic minor scales, diminished scales, and enclosures, which are used to create many gypsy jazz style phrases.
I've pretty much decided to go with putting the phrases first and the source for the phrases after.

Appel

Heh heh. You're getting lots of "help" with this publication, aren't you ... just to give some positive feedback, I think you've come up with a good layout. The music always has to come before the theory! It can be just miserable, as a student, very boring and discouraging to have to slog through a bunch of technical stuff before you're allowed to play a melody. Of course a student can always flip forward in a book, but the layout has strong implications and you are wise to think carefully about it. I think, if you lay out some nice phrases first, it'll help to contextualize the theory and support the student and the instructor in the hard work to come.

And having a few blank pages in a book, here and there, is actually a strong rhetorical strategy - it invites the student to engage, get in there with a pencil and make a mess - make the book come alive. I like that!

Good luck with the publication and the event.

Hugh Huffaker

I really enjoy the notes the Rosenberg Academy puts above some of Stochelo's phrases. A lot of times Stochelo uses so many ornaments and chromatic notes that it is hard to even identify the arpeggio/scale he is using (for me at least). The notes above Stochelo's phrases have helped me greatly in understanding what he is doing. The notes usually identify the arpeggio played and why they work in certain instances. I would like to see more books that lay out a song using basic arpeggios. Then in the next section they take the same song and arpeggios and add the ornaments. Almost like a before and after.