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What our customer's say!

"The Good,The Bad & The Ugly", First off the good. This book is an everyman's discussion on improvisation which I liken to the 'Piano Guy' on PBS.Folks pressed for time may find this approach soothing.The author is a drummer by trade with some music theory education but no degree so expert review is cited along with interviews to lend credibility to the material mostly gleaned from beginning music theory courses. The bad: The author has little expertise in what he's writing about so inaccuracies abound. For example close to the end of the book Miller states that Elliot Randall's 'Reeling In The Years' guitar solo was entirely derived from A Mixolydian. That is flat out wrong,especially in his 3rd solo based largely on A Minor Pentatonic,(the 1st notes of the 1st solo are from A major bebop), the end of the 2nd solo is using altered 5th tones around the Gmaj9 chord) and should have been fixed in the editing phase. The ugly: The entire 'Complete Idiot' franchise is mildly offensive to me. I have a few mentally challenged adults in my family but they are smart enough to know how psychologically cruel this culture can be. The author redeems himself by putting in his improv rules 'Be a Good Person'. Well that may not help you specifically with your improvisation but it's good general advice. The book is long and very chatty for my taste, more akin to something you might take to the toilet than actually put on a music stand. If you have some improvisational experience this book probably won't help you much but it will give you a layman's perspective on the subject. It tries to appeal to everyone, even singers but is mostly geared towards rock guitarists and yet there is no tab for the numerous short riffs presented; so odd, the contadictions in this book. It's like the IRS tax code improv text for beginners and it will be collecting alot of dust on my bookshelf.

"Improv made easier", A comprehensive aproach to improvising for a variety of styles. The Forewords are by famed trumpeter, Marvin Stamm and jazz educater Jamey Aebersold with praise for author, Michael Miller and that is high praise indeed from such eminent talents.

"They Don't Make Idiots Like They Used To", This books covers a world of material on crafting rock/jazz/blues solos for less than the price of a music lesson. You need to have reasonable mastery of your instrument before tackling this book (playing scales, reading music, producing proper tone, etc.). The book will easily take a non-obsessed musician over a year to plow through and absorb fully if they do not have much background in improvisation or theory. The "Idiot" that masters the material would be an amazing idiot indeed. What makes this book stand out from others?

1) The amount of material covered: There are some gaps (like modes of the melodic minor scale), but this book does an incredibly good job of hitting important topics in comprehensive fashion. Its broad scope almost rivals an encyclopedia.
2) Clear and concise explanations: the book opts for clear explanations and illustrative examples, rather than giving technically perfect explanations. Other books deal with topics in exhaustive depth (Bert Ligon's jazz books and Mark Levine's Drop 2 book come to mind); this one presents the concepts and suggests their application, then leaves it to the student to explore.
3) Interviews - there are two very good interviews with pros from jazz and rock
4) Appendices - the appendices have some good scale charts that will be useful for reference and practice.
5) Lots of practice patterns
6) Advice that goes beyond the theory - theory is indispensible, but it doesn't equal music, any more than colors equal art. The real value in this book is the discussion of how to make solos interesting and effective. The advice in this realm is as useful to a reaasonably experienced improviser as it is to a beginner, and trancends all genres. Every solo can be analyzed through these concepts to find where room for improvement may be found.

This books has plenty to offer to the budding improviser. Do not be fooled by the bargain price or the title: it is not a half-hearted introduction or a quick fix. It is as jam-packed with information as any book on the subject could be. It will require time, practice and dedication to master the material in this book, but it will produce results if you do your part.

Because of the breadth of material covered, go elsewhere for depth (not a fault, just a fact). That might come in the form of a book on a specific topic or a music teacher. In fact, this book would probably be an excellent text to use with music lessons so that important topics can be identified and expanded, and bad habits can be avoided.