The Frank Gambale Technique Book 1 with CD (Audio)

Rating:
Summary: the best book around, period
Review: I've been using it for a decade now, and i'm still learning. This book has some minor flaws, but as a whole, it remains the best book for the practicing guitarist. Frank's modal approach kicks Don Mock's tonal so-called easier approach so don't use Mock's book, use this one !!!

Rating:
Summary: A million ideas to improve your soloing
Review: This is an excellent book for anyone who is serious about learning to play guitar. Although, I bought this book for $40 not $100+ as listed here. Gambale breaks everything down into chord types. Minor 7, major 7, unaltered dominant 7, altered dominant 7, minor 7 (b5), diminished. He attacks each chord type with several soloing approaches. He lists and gives examples of appropriate modes, arpeggios, pentatonics that can be used over that specific chord type. For example. When discussing a minor 7 chord he says there are two ways to look at it. You can look at it as a II chord or a VI chord. Say you are playing a dmin7. Dmin 7 is the II of C and the VI of F. So in this case you can use D Dorian or Aeolian. He also says that if you treat Dmin7 as the second of C you can use. Dmin, Emin, Amin blues/pentatonic scales over the Dmin7. Since the minor chords are II, III, and VI in any major scale. You can also approach soloing using arpeggios from cmaj over the Dmin and you can play these in fourths to get a more interesting sound, rather than just running up or down arpeggios. He has gone through all of that by page 8 and there is about 80 pages in the book. So basically, there is a huge wealth of knowlege in this book and it is an excellent way for a guitarist to get away from moving to the trusty pentatonic scales as soon as its time to solo. This book also comes with a Cd containing samples of each excercise as well as a couple short songs that Gambale has put together. Im not a big fan of the effects he uses while playing the excercises, but it doesn't really take anything away from the learning experience. If you can get a chance to get a hold of this book you should give it a chance, but know that it will take some serious time and experimentation to make these theoretical ideas come out of your guitar as music. They cant really be charging $107 for this, can they? Keep your eyes open and you should be able to find this book for around $40.