Mickey Baker vs Jody Fisher?

[ChrisDowning]

Yes I agree about spme of the old books. its interestingnthat some, like Mickey Baker, keep going and others that I can remeber just go out of print. In fact the Ted Greene books were unavailable for a few years. (And I sold an old Tommy Tedesco book for about £40 before that one came back on stream and you could get new ones again).

My first guitar book that I learnt most of my chrd melody stuff from was "The McNeil Modern Guitar Method" by Charles McNeil copyrighted in 1930 - so I was learning from material that was 30 years old when I saw it first!! But the diciplines in there, straight off having to learn positional chords up and down the neck - i.e. lesson one on chords had a C major, F major and G7th that comprsed a full scale of chords from C to C at the 8th fret - so pretty hard stuff for a 12 year old just starting out. And my guitar teacher telling me if I didn't do an hour a day he didn't want me to come back!

Then I bought a pair of the Mickey Baker books - pretty much the only jazz guitar books avaiable in London in 1965. Then in 1981 I found an interesting set of jazz chord books laid out in a systematic way I've still taught - lesson one - take an open C chord and play it through to the C note fretted at 1 on the 2nd string - then play a Cmaj7 ending with the B on the 2nd - now a C7 finishing on the 7th on the 3rd string - then a C6th finishing on the 2 fret on the 3rd. So four chords around one shape. Then do the same dropping tone (maj, maj7, 7th, 6th) with the A chord form and onto the G E and D shapes. So four chords in five shapes and moved to the twelve positions on the neck = 240 chords. These books were called "Jazz Harmonies - The System" by Pat McKee. Again long out of print, but abgreat way to learn lots of chords as a beginner and expand your chord melody otions very easily.

Every student who has shown some chord melody interest has been introduced to photocopy pages of the MvKee books becauseits such a fast way to learn lots of chords. Its a pity these books become unknown - especially now as it is so easy to digitize them for distribution. I'd be happy to send a few pages out if someone can tell me I won't become a target for Hal Leonards lawyers!! (ha ha).

[matt.guitarteacher]

I agree that with the Fisher series, the underlying logic to how the voicings are introduced is hard to fathom following the treatment of triad theory. Out of interest, what do you think is the most logical, progressive method of introducing chord voicings? I note that some of the old time books by Ronnie Lee and Arnie Berle are still highly regarded.

I don't have tons of books. Of the ones I have that are on that level, I like William Leavitt's Modern Guitar Method for chords. Prioritized from basic go-to beginner chords to more advanced throughout. He uses previous chords to build others. You see relationships between them and the chord groupings have basic voice leading considerations. Not "progressive", but it's progressive in the linear-progression sense? There's a lot of non-chord material between the chord stuff. Take what you want from it. I wouldn't get the 3-in-1. Get volume 1 if you don't have it.

I also had a copy of Mel Bay's Complete Jazz Guitar Method by Mike Christiansen that I bought back in the days before interwebs (at least for me) for the sole purpose of learning those "Freddie Greene" chords. You can probably find that stuff online I guess. Great basic stuff to build on with those...

[ChrisDowning]

"I also had a copy of Mel Bay's Complete Jazz Guitar Method by Mike Christiansen that I bought back in the days before the internet."

It's still available for about £15 - like a lot of those early books from before the internet came along. It's true that these books cover a lot of background which is pretty much always the same and published free on web pages - but I think the key is to be working on progressively harder material and these books fill that requirement. I always taught from published books as I didn't want to be spending time working it all out and then ending up with a one fits all approach. (But I also wasn't interested in getting students to pay me for my books because that's what got me the most money - I just concentrated on the teaching.)

All the classic old time books are still published because they still sell - the big hurdle is to do the work and get through the material. I've come across a great Audio Book called "The Practising Mind" from Audible. I wish it had existed all the years I taught - it deals with how to practice and how to develop the motivation to do the work like no other book I have ever come across. Here's a link. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Practicing-M...qid=1420315197

[Melodic Dreamer]

So is the Ted Greene stuff appropriate for beginner level players?

Joe

Ted's stuff is very dense. Working through his books could easily take 2 lifetimes. I would look elsewhere for inspiration in the beginning stages. That's not saying anything bad about Ted's books, but there is a lot of stuff in there that can get pretty overwhelming very quickly.

[snoskier63]

I like both the Fisher and Baker books, but for learning jazz what is the opinion of Berklee's Modern Method for Guitar volumes 1, 2, and 3? I find this series to be fairly well organized and pretty intuitive for self-study, but do others agree?

[ChrisDowning]

The Berklee books by Leavitt are fine books and will get you started. However you will be also starting tomlearn standard notation in these books and theyvare very much old school from a time up to about the mid 90's when there was little available to support college level courses in jazz guitar - so they are more classical guitar orientated. Its all down to where you are starting and what you want to learn. I can tell you that students of mine who wanted to play jazzy stuff and jazz style accompanymenst wanted to get right in and do some jazz rhythms sooner than you would studying Berklee - so for them it was a mixture of Baker and Fisher.

None of these are expensive books and some can be had from Amazon s/h at just a dollar or two - so I'm guessing I'm saying getbthem all cheaply and dip in to see what grabs you and meets your needs.

BTW if you choose not to read (learn) any music you will find some jazz guys difficult to understand and difficult to play with - if they are in the habit of using cheat sheets and those one pager melody/chord sheets, you are going to be competely wrong footed not reading. That's where the Leavitt stuff will kick in and help.