More Blues You Can Use

Rating:
Summary: Great...but challenging
Review: I think both this book and the original "Blues You Can Use" are terrific. I learned a ton from the first one, and I'm learning another ton from this one. What I like best about these books is that the material never sounds stilted or dull--as it does in too many other books.

Be warned, though: this book is quite a bit more demanding than the first one. It's almost like there was supposed to be a "middle" book between the first one and this one. There is some EXTREMELY fast playing in the practice tracks. It will take me lots and lots of practice and patience to get them down.

Beginners should steer clear of this book. You'll only be disappointed. Try the first "Blues You Can Use" book instead.

That being said--the stuff sounds exciting. I can't wait until I master all of it. It's a great chance to learn how some of those great high-speed riffs I've heard in the past work. Because I don't think I'll ever be able to work them out on my own.

Rating:
Summary: so far, so good.
Review: I think both this book and the original "Blues You Can Use" are terrific. I learned a ton from the first one, and I'm learning another ton from this one. What I like best about these books is that the material never sounds stilted or dull--as it does in too many other books.

Be warned, though: this book is quite a bit more demanding than the first one. It's almost like there was supposed to be a "middle" book between the first one and this one. There is some EXTREMELY fast playing in the practice tracks. It will take me lots and lots of practice and patience to get them down.

Beginners should steer clear of this book. You'll only be disappointed. Try the first "Blues You Can Use" book instead.

That being said--the stuff sounds exciting. I can't wait until I master all of it. It's a great chance to learn how some of those great high-speed riffs I've heard in the past work. Because I don't think I'll ever be able to work them out on my own.

Rating:
Summary: Great...but challenging
Review: I think both this book and the original "Blues You Can Use" are terrific. I learned a ton from the first one, and I'm learning another ton from this one. What I like best about these books is that the material never sounds stilted or dull--as it does in too many other books.

Be warned, though: this book is quite a bit more demanding than the first one. It's almost like there was supposed to be a "middle" book between the first one and this one. There is some EXTREMELY fast playing in the practice tracks. It will take me lots and lots of practice and patience to get them down.

Beginners should steer clear of this book. You'll only be disappointed. Try the first "Blues You Can Use" book instead.

That being said--the stuff sounds exciting. I can't wait until I master all of it. It's a great chance to learn how some of those great high-speed riffs I've heard in the past work. Because I don't think I'll ever be able to work them out on my own.

Rating:
Summary: so far, so good.
Review: I've been playing guitar for about three years now, but I never really practice much. I'd just learn a few parts of songs that sounded cool, and then sit in frong of the tv playing them and messing around in pentatonic scales. I bought this book without the first one because I am quite familiar with 12 bar blues forms and techniques from guitar one magazines. This book is great. I just started the first lesson, and it begins exactly where I needed to begin at. No skimming throught trying to find pages I don't already know. The book is well written and explains the songs and note selections very well. The main point of the book seems to be to get you to creatively follow the changes of a 12 bar blues form, in both rhythm and lead. I imagine I will work on each lesson for about a week at a time. I would recommend this book to those who practiced and enjoyed the first book, or to those blues fans that have a hard time picking notes outside pentatonic scales. Be prepared to work hard on each lesson though!

Rating:
Summary: Solid ground and bluesy sound
Review: More Blues You Can Use picks up where Blues You Can Use left off. The two books are a great combo for self-teaching blues electric guitar. In this second book, Ganape puts more focus on rhythm guitar than in the first book, with each lesson including a rhythm lesson that is very useful. The scale portion of each lesson is also much more instructive--he gets beyond the (necessary and useful) pentatonic pattern inculcation of the first book, and into lead patterns and runs that can help in building new, improvised solos and licks. The solos are now generally two DIFFERENT choruses, which adds to repertoire and illustrates more of the principles of improv and lick playing. And more important, the solos are (as they were in the first book too) tasteful and progressively more challenging.

You can actually learn a lot from this book in practical terms and principles.