Chord Tone Soloing for Jazz Guitar: Master Arpeggio-Based Jazz Bebop Soloing for Guitar (Learn How to Play Jazz Guitar)

Excellent review book

Been playing the guitar off and on the last several years and have found "Chord Tone Soloing for Jazz Guitar" by Joseph Alexander to be most insightful and helpful with my development as a musician. I often in the past would get stuck in a rut and spent way too much time trying to process all the theory and examples from previous books and instructors. Mr. Alexander has provided simple, concise methods for guitar soloing via chord tones....of which I am most grateful!

Although this appears to be quite a short book it has taken me over 6 months to get thru it. You need to pace yourself and follow Joseph's instructions, not to just skip ahead to the next part. You need to go over the exercises until they are really bedded in and are becoming part of your playing (not easy for an impatient guy like me :-)). I found the book really useful. It is well laid out. My only slight criticism would be that the chord and arpeggio shape drawings are just too small when reading on a tablet. The other issue with the diagrams, and this is just a personal preference but I think an important one, is that the drawings should all be rotated 90 degrees counter clockwise. This is so they then look like the correct view of the fretboard as you view it while playing. This enhances and reinforces the visual image of the pattern in your mind. The way they are presented is not helpful.The book comes with a series of audio tracks to practice with. I actually didn't use these as I just played the chord progression into my looper and used that. I did listen to a few of them though and they are very well done.This book is all about arpeggios and getting them under your fingers (This is what takes the time) . If you are a bit stuck with your playing and want to open up some soloing possibilities then this may be the book for you. Being a chord tone system gives your solos a very slick and sweet type of sound but because Joseph gives you a series of techniques to start and stop your solo in "odd" places and arpeggios that skip notes you can also achieve that outside kind of off the wall solo that we all strive for.I liked it. I'm going to explore more of Mr Alexander's books. I think you should too :-)P.S. I gave it 4/5 only because of the diagram issue. The content of the book deserves a solid 5/5

Excellent book to begin your studies of jazz guitar soloing. This book reinforces the fundamental beginning step of using chord tones on stong beats inorder to really bring out that professional jazz sound. Study and work are essential but you can start to hear those beautiful sounds you've been searching for.Highly recommended.

I wish I had this book 40 years ago when I was cutting my jazz teeth. Horn players have known this stuff for eons, but somehow guitarists missed the boat. Even the great classic jazz guitar tutors didnt spend much time on topics like voice leading. Possibly because the guitar was primarily regarded as a rhythm instrument in the early days of jazz.I believe that if someone had given me this book 40 years ago it would have shaved years off my practise time. I eventually did learn the subject matter but I made a lot of mistakes along the way and spent a lot of time playing the wrong thingsI would highly recommend this book to students of jazz guitar, and teachers alike. I am a teacher and I find this book to be a great resource.Now, the cons: I have 2 little peeves; the first one probably applies to just about every guitar book these days. It is a favorite irk of mine. I object to paying for TABs. Reading music is a fundamental aspect of musicianship. Not reading music is like a medical student who says, "I am not interested in spines, ribs, hearts . . . ." Whatever. You would expect your doctor to know all the basics. Imagine Steven King if he were illiterate; the idea is preposterous!2nd. There are some musical examples in this book that are way too small in the iBook edition. I have had to photograph these pages then enlarge the photos. Do yourself a favor and get the print edition.Summary: A very good, better than average, jazz guitar tutorial. I recommend it.

I have always wondered how jazz musicians launch into seemingly effortless solos. This book provides concrete steps for joining together chord tones to make coherent solos. One of my favorite sections is "Joining the Dots," which introduces important "segue" concepts such as approach notes and chromatic passing notes. Really great tool!

I wish I had this book years ago. I never leave reviews but I have to put the word out on this book. The author does a great job of explaining the material and getting you to play jazz right away. Some other jazz instruction books start out by being too basic and then immediately jump into concepts of which I have no understanding with very little explanation. Because of this book, I now understand substitution chords and am able to apply these concepts to the jazz tunes I need to play in my wedding band. Highly recommend this book for the want-to-be jazz soloist.

I already have some books by Joseph Alexander and all of them are very good. Joseph is strong in explaining some fine details and will guide you in very understandable (easy to digest/small steps/applicable) way from ii V I to other more complicated yet still very frequent jazz chord progressions. I compared the progressions he included in this book with article "6 Common Chord Relationships that You Need to Know Now" on jazzadvice.com. Except the I vii (half-diminished) relationship all of them are included in progressions Joseph studies in his book. So, I think that he has chosen the progressions very well and I think it is better to study longer progressions than just two chord relationships.I was afraid that this book will have big overlap with his book Fundamental changes in jazz guitar, but the overlap is rather smaller and this book together with Minor ii V Mastery and the mentioned Fundamental changes form very good trio that I encourage everyone to buy.

This book is on my top list of recommendations to buy! I have a few books now from Joseph Alexander and this and the 'First 100 Jazz chords for guitar' are my favourites.This is not a book for an absolute beginner but for someone who has been playing jazz for over a year and has a few standards under the fingers and has some understanding of jazz theory. I think for an absolute beginner that this book might be a bit frustrating but for someone who is aware of jazz progressions and knows arpeggios, this is a fantastic book to practice along with and re-enforce as well as learn new things such as 3-9 arpeggios and substitutions.

Si no has hecho el curro de pasar por los arpegios y enlazarlos desde la nota más cercana, este es tu libroVas a picar piedra, hacer el curro imprescindible.Los audios no son de gran calidad pero ayudan a poner las notas en su sitio si el solfeo no es lo tuyo (por supuesto tiene TAB)Es un poco pesado, pero toca lo que toca y tiene todo tipo de secuencias de acordes sobre los que trabajar.Muy recomendado si tienes ciertas nociones de arpegios pero no te lo has currado machacándolo.Le pongo 4 estrellas porque aunque es útil, le falta un poco de salsa en los ejemplos,

This book helped me to better understand theory. Very good book.

I found this book a really valuable guide to jazz guitar soloing based around arpeggios. Loads of example chord progressions, and because it's so well organised it's great to dip into, which I do a lot.

There is a heck of a lot of material in this book to get through, and so will take some time to cover all the Chapters. But that is a good thing as each Chapter is clearly laid out, has detailed descriptions of chords, arpeggios, guitar tabulation and good general advice on practice.As a self taught Guitarist playing Rock and Blues I put off branching out into Jazz until by chance I saw the Author talking about his books on Musical U on You Tube. I did my research and when I saw how much information and how well it was all set out I just had to get this book and I’m not disappointed. After only a few weeks of study, I found my fear of Jazz was unfounded and now thanks to this book I’m hooked on this music.There are other Guitar Tutorial books out there, some of which I have and are okay, but are not as Comprehensive & Detailed as this book, which is excellent value for money.It does what it says on the tin as it helps you to master the fretboard skills and essential progressions in bepop that gets your playing much closer to an authentic jazz sound.On the strength of this book I bought Joseph’s ‘Guitar Scales In Context’...but that’s another story and a damn good read - David Acaster.