Guitar Secrets. Symmetrical Scales Revealed Dimished & Whole Tone; Book & CD Guitar Secrets

Customer Reviews

Jazz and fusion licks

2007-12-04
This book provides tons of ideas to advance your horizons in the area of jazz, rock and fusion guitar. If you are an intermediate level jazz or rock guitarists this book will suit you. The ideas in these series once mastered will make you play like the legends e.g Gambale, Carlton, Mclaughlin etc.. Sassy lines indeed!!

Practical Revelation

2006-04-17
This book is a hands on, practical guide on applying the melodic minor scale in improvisation. The approach is simple and does NOT require memorizing multiple patterns across the fingerboard along with multiple modes. This approach makes sense. I highly recommend it.

Excellent Exposition of the Usage of Melodic Minor Scale

2006-01-27
This book displays the ideas of how to apply the melodic minor scale, through the means of scalar sequences, static chord vamp, ii-V applications, arppegio superimpositions, pentatonic fragments, etc. From learning these ideas, one should be well equipped for further exploring into the study of this scale, which is essential in jazz music.

In terms of technique, to be able to play the phrases, particularly the wide intervallic ones in full speed that Don demonstrates on the CD, obviously requires good technique, or at least will lead to the development of your alternate/sweep picking technique so as to accommodate some unusual runs within certain phrases. In this respect, the licks and phrases in this book can at times be quite advanced.

The most useful units in the book have to be the four usages (2nd, 4th, 5th, and 7th mode of the scale) or substitutions, though the 6th mode is briefly showcased as an alternative to the harmonic minor scale in a minor ii-V progression. The demonstrated licks fuse together in general a traditional jazz sound (e.g. the "Gone but not forgotten" lick frequently appears, cf. Jerry Coker's Elements of the Jazz Language for the Developing Improvisor), arpeggio superimpositions, modern runs in 4th/5th, and wide intervallic jumps. The licks are inspiring and should help build a good foundation for developing the usages of this scale.

Interested guitarist may also want to check out Don's Artful Arpeggios: Fingerings and Applications for Guitar (REH Pro Lessons), Joe Diorio's Intervallic Designs for Jazz Guitar: Ultramodern Sounds for Improvising and Steve Khan's Pentatonic Khancepts for furthering the study of these areas which the current book has presented on different levels.

Great Book!

2005-11-26
This book is great, especially if you'd like to develop intervallic lines for improvisation. Highly recommended!

Great Book!

2005-11-26
This book is great, especially if you'd like to develop intervallic lines for improvisation. Highly recommended!

pages missing/duped

2005-03-05
Learning how to play and use scales has always been a large part of every guitar player’s practice schedule. Written from a player’s perspective, this book doesn’t get too in-depth into the history and classical theory of the scales, but focuses on their uses in contemporary styles such as blues, rock, fusion, and jazz. Includes tons of diminished and whole-tone lines, licks, and music examples; soloing and scale substitution from a player’s perspective; and new sounds and ideas. Written in standard notation and tab.

Great Book - Huge Printing Error Though

2005-02-05
I like Don's books in this series. I have the Melodic Minor and Harmonic Minor ones as well. I like Don's playing, he gives good examples which are just fuel for how to use these scales, where to use them, and how they sound. Nice supplementary material to your monotonous scale practice.

I gave 2 stars b/c I've had to return this book twice. The first copy I got was missing pages 9-17, and was missing pages 49-56, and pages 41-48 repeat themselves, so there are two copies of that set of pages one after the other. It's obviously a printing/publishing defect, the binder is fine and there are no tears. The second copy Amazon sent me as a replacement had the exact same problem, so I have had to call the publisher. As of this writing I've yet to hear back from them.

The book is on the cheap side (the cd is stapled in the binding with thick paper), and there's not a ton of content. The CD is a nice supplement though, so the cost kinda' balances out. Worth the money ---if you can find a defect-free copy.

Very nice supplement to scale practice

2005-01-25
I was introduced to Don Mock when I attended GIT in 1987. He's a cool teacher, kinda' campy at times, but a good player who knows his stuff well. This book is a nice supplement to just learning the patterns of the melodic minor. In the book and on the CD Don shows some nice examples of playing the scale in a variety of different situations and explains where the scale works, etc. Though no one really _needs_ this book if they already have an idea of how to play and use the melodic minor, it's a really nice way to break the monotony of standard scale practice when you're trying to expand your playing beyond just the standard major scales.

The book is pretty cheaply made, held together by staples. The CD is held in by the staples, so you have to bend them some to remove the CD. The case for the CD is made out of thick paper. The CD play time is about 20-30 minutes in total. The book is pretty small, would be even smaller if there was no tab (and if there were no ultra cheesy detective cartoons and photos of Don in a trench coat, making him look like a character in a porno) so there's not a ton of actual content ... about 15-20 pages in all, so try to avoid paying full retail if you can.