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Ted Greene books

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(@gleystee)
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Joined: 19 years ago
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Topic starter  

Has anyone here worked through any of Ted Greene's books, like Chord Chemistry, Modern Chord Progressions, or Single Note Soloing Vol. 1 & 2? I'm thinking about buying the Single Note soloing vol. 1, but I just wanted to hear someone's opinion on the books, or if they would recommend studying one before the other. I know they require a great deal of practice but I'm willing to put it forth to get to that all important next level.
Thanks,
John


   
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(@noteboat)
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Joined: 21 years ago
Posts: 4921
 

I have all of Ted's books. They're all a bit different in character...

Chord Chemistry is the bible of chord voicings. I continue to find new ideas in that book - and I've had my copy since sometime in the 70s.

Modern Chord Progressions is more of a 'resource' book; it shows different types of progressions, like I-vi-ii-V, with suggested voicings. You'll want to be fingerpicking most of them, as there are a lot of string separations to get the voice movements.

The 2-volume Single Note Soloing is a decent set. You'll need to read standard notation to use them. They cover scales, arpeggios, and combining them into runs, with brief sections on slurring and other decorations. Although the material is presented sequentially, starting with major chords and moving to altered dominants, there's not a lot of explanatory text... so they might be tough to work with as self-teaching instructional books. If you have a teacher (or at least someone to bring your questions to) they can be a great introduction to jazz soloing.

Guitar teacher offering lessons in Plainfield IL


   
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(@gleystee)
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Joined: 19 years ago
Posts: 29
Topic starter  

Thanks for the quick response. You called the single note soloing set decent, do you have a suggestion for a text that would be a better introduction to jazz soloing? I can read standard notation, I'm just pretty slow at it. However, I have a great teacher, so I do believe I could get through it with his help.


   
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(@noteboat)
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Joined: 21 years ago
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I like the Jamey Aebersold series... tbey're book/CD sets with a rhythm section on the CD. Books have the melodies transcribed (for the instructional CDs you get exercises) so you can play along, and solo over the changes.

Books like Greene's are great for ideas, but they don't really answer the "how do I learn to solo" dilemma, which takes both ideas and practice... if you work with just a book, you end up practicing the writer's ideas - it takes messing around with them over a rhythm section to turn them into your ideas. Once you're comfortable improvising, books like Greene's make a good source for new directions.

Aebersold now has over 100 book/CD sets in their catalog. Some are instructional, some are by style of jazz (standards, latin, blues, ballads, etc.), and some are by composer (Coletrane, Davis, Hancock, Ellington...)

Guitar teacher offering lessons in Plainfield IL


   
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(@gleystee)
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Joined: 19 years ago
Posts: 29
Topic starter  

Thank you, I will certainly take all that you've said into consideration before making a purchase. I will most likely get an Aebersold book to play with for a while, and one day move on to Greene when I feel more comfortable expressing my own ideas.


   
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