Nova Musica Compendium: Jazz Guitar Studies with Dennis Sandole

This is an amazing, unique book. Amazing because of the sheer quality and quantity and variety of the material. Unique because it is the record of a very (okay, extremely) serious student's time with one of the great teachers in jazz, Dennis Sandole. The only thing I can compare it to are the records of Ted Greene's students on his tribute site. But this book goes far beyond jazz, with transcriptions of modern classical themes and pieces, explorations of synthetic scales and their harmonizations, etc., etc., and etc. Note: these are scans from the author's notes, so be prepared for a whole lot of reading and the occasional puzzling out of what is going on. It is worth it.

I studied with the Maestro, Dennis Sandole, in college and have fond memories of the challenging curriculum that he provided. In 30 minutes each week, Sandole would lay out his vision for composition and the artistry of jazz guitar. Looking back, I only have a few pages left from the books that he filled over those years. When I heard that Scott McGill was publishing this volume I was excited to see it and grateful that he would share a glimpse into what I always thought to be a very personal relationship. It is a tremendous piece of work that could easily have been split into multiple volumes and been significantly more expensive--clearly a labor of love and a gift to the jazz world. Thank you and bravo

AMAZING BOOK!! Dennis Sandole was a iconic teacher and Scott McGill’s notes from his lessons with Dennis are fascinating indeed!! I highly recommend this book for all musicians. I also highly recommend all of Scott’s other books as well!!

Fantastic book of Dennis Sandole Teachings put together by another Musical Genius Scott McGill

Hi guys. If you are looking for one of the most incredible collection of music studies & concepts for jazz guitar, this book is definitely for you. The author Scott McGill, who is a remarkable jazz/fusion guitar player himself, gathered in this work a meaningfull part of his ten years long lessons with the one and only Dennis Sandole! It's not easy to mention a full list of musicians who took music lessons from Mr. Sandole but the name of John Coltrane and Pat Martino might make the idea! Of course this book is not for beginners but if you are serious about guitar, music and jazz, you should definitely check it out! :-)

First off, this book is heavy! 1.4 kilograms or 3 lbs. After a short introduction we get to the meat of the book, over 400 pages of hand written music script. I must issue a warning here, you have to be able to read music pretty well, there is no tab of course and the material is complex and detailed.Covering over ten years of Scott McGill’s study with Dennis Sandole It is a testament to Scott’s present skills and Sandole’s tutorship. You can pretty much dip in and out of the book where you please and some pages treat the same song in different ways.I would recommend this book to the advanced guitarist wishing to expand ideas and style, this is truly the “War & Peace” of Jazz Guitar Studies and will keep you occupied for many years…

Scott McGill has just released a huge volume of massive importance, his handwritten study notes from the ten years he had Dennis Sandole (tutor to the John Coltrane, Joe Diorio, Pat Martino and many, many others) as his tutor. This is vast and the studies are really wide reaching, from scales ( and sequences) of many types, some great rhythm studies, transcriptions of classical pieces (these are awesome...I'm really enjoying the Debussy pieces) , transcriptions of Jazz solos, some incredible chord studies and much, much more...I'm really only just scratching the surface. This is a lifetimes' work and then some, though every time I pick up up the book I feel like I'm getting info straight from the source. Scott McGill is beyond incredible...and this book shows why.

This book is very large and it's jam-packed full on scans of Scott McGill's lessons which he prepared whilst studying with Dennis Sandole.The range of the material is very broad and it would be wise to dip in at random and select a topic which interests you.There is undoubtedly years of work in this book. Buying this will give you a good insight into what Scott studied on his way to becoming the monster musician that he is.