Has anyone finished 'the approach'? - The Advancing Guitarist

**Jimmy blue note** · 07-31-2023, 11:11 AM

Originally Posted by Reg

I though Holger was another old guitarist from old days on this forum.

Ah right! It'd be nice if we had archives of past notables on the forum. That tributes thread made me realize that there have been so many cool characters in this community. What happened to Holger?

**Christian Miller** · 07-31-2023, 12:35 PM

He goes by many names

**pamosmusic** · 11-03-2025, 10:19 AM

I have had some students ask that we work through some of The Advancing Guitarist on a Wednesday group workshop that I do.

PM me for info

**jazznylon** · 11-03-2025, 10:45 AM

I've been working through the book again recently as a do-over. I'm embarrased to read my past comments on this thread

Sure thing I'll hit you up.

**joe2758** · 11-03-2025, 11:00 AM

How many hours are you practicing now? Are you the guy with the huge guitar?

**jazznylon** · 11-03-2025, 11:13 AM

Yes.

I try to shoot for an hour at least a day since life is busy. Its hard to build a consistent schedule when there is a variety of things to attend to.

**Jimmy blue note** · 11-03-2025, 06:40 PM

Originally Posted by pamosmusic

I have had some students ask that we work through some of The Advancing Guitarist on a Wednesday group workshop that I do.

PM me for info

It's been decades since I got my first copy of Advancing, and like an old LP, it's been replaced two times. Like the physical book itself, it has changed the way I've seen the evolutionary process of becoming a guitarist, and with every quantum leap of understanding, this book has changed the depth and breadth of what I have thought jazz improvisation is about.
Mick Goodrick was a visionary, not only about technical nuts and bolts of being a guitarist, but what a musical artist can do to remove the blocks and obstacales from the path to imagination and freedom from cliché.
I see a lot of people who say his approach is too broad; knowing all possibilities is an impossibility when playing jazz is better studied by embracing a defined set of rules. It took me many years of learning the rules to find out how I was limited by them.
I really like this book because it presents possibilities, not on what to do, but what can be done if you so chose.

It was somewhat of a ground shaking discovery that I came across another book, one that pre-dated and also followed The Advancing Guitarist and focused on further advancement. It's not so much a technical look at the instrument but rather a philosophical look at the process of learning, and becoming a more complete player.
I'm organizing it into a form that can eventually be published.

From that book of thoughts and Mick-sims:

"In my experience, the aspiring guitarist needs to work mor or less simultaneously in three directions: The instrument, the music, and the player. Of these three, the first two lines of study are obvious. The last one is more subtle. In fact, I would venture to say that few have ever heard of such a thing, or even thought of it. Strangely enough, it happens to be the most important. However, one's ability to study the player seems to depend on much work and experience on the first two lines.
Consequently, the bulk of material in this present work concerns itself with the instrument and the music. Nonetheless, I hope to at least to allude to the study of the player; that science which I most fondly refer to as "the search for the guitar's guitar". "

**jazznylon** · 11-04-2025, 10:03 AM

When practicing this stuff on a single string I notice my improvisations tend to get 'too pretty' so I tried incorporating the minor 6th arpeggio (emphasizing the 4th degree avoid note) more to break things up. It sounds cool at least, and I think charlie christian uses it quite often.