Product Description

An in-depth approach to mastering arpeggios for guitarists, beginning with simple arpeggio studies, this book progresses through simple concepts and tunes then proceeds to tackle some of the great standards that jazz musicians play. The lesson concludes with advanced arpeggio concepts including super-imposition of unusual arpeggios over various chord types to create startling tonal clusters. This is a must-have for all serious guitarists who want to achieve great technique while developing their sense of harmony. Companion CD included.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #125088 in Books
• Published on: 2004-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 40 pages

About the Author
Born in New York City, Mimi Fox began playing drums at nine, and the guitar at ten. Inspired by the wide variety of music enjoyed by her family and her own youthful penchant for pop, folk, and R&B, she bought her first jazz album at fourteen "because it was on sale." That album, John Coltrane's classic Giant Steps, changed the course of her musical life. Fox began touring immediately after high school and moved to San Francisco in 1979 where she became a sought-after musician. She is on the faculty of the Jazzschool in Berkeley, California, and has appeared as guest clinician at the University of Connecticut, University of Oregon, the Britt Music Festival (in Jacksonville, Oregon), and other distinguished institutions. She has also received numerous awards for her original scores for dance, theater and film. Most Recently, she was named "Rising Star" in the Downbeat critics poll for 2003.

Mimi maintains a whirlwind tour schedule, performing in major jazz clubs and festivals from New York to Tokyo. She has performed with fellow guitarists Charlie Byrd, and Charlie Hunter, as well as with the Turtle Island String Quartet and has shared the stage with a wide array of artists; she has also been featured on a number of television shows including BET on Jazz.

Her most recent recording, Two for the Road (Origin Records) features Greta Matassa while Standards (Origin Records) is a solo guitar effort. Kicks, her second CD on the Monarch label, showcases her extraordinary soloing and features special guests Joey DeFrancesco on organ, keyboardist Russell Ferrante and drummer Will Kennedy from the Yellowjackets, vocalist Angela Bofil, and guitarist Charlie Hunter. Turtle Logic (Monarch) with the Turtle Island String Quartet was her first commercial recording.

Equally adept on both steel string acoustic and hollow-body jazz guitars, Mimi Fox is a compelling musician, prolific composer, talented arranger, inspired teacher, and dynamic leader of her own band. She endorses Heritage Guitars.

Customer Reviews

Great start on jazz.
For players like myself who started out playing rock and blues this book is a great way to begin playing jazz. Starts you out right away playing over chord changes and progresses to some popular jazz tunes. Real practicle application. Great stuff!

Food for Thought
This is a real "food for thought" book for the fledgling intermediate player, with a solid footing in chord theory, and who is serious about learning how to improvise over jazz changes. The signature sound of jazz is typically built around chord tone arpeggios coupled with the deft use of chromaticism (passing notes). This book introduces you to that concept. There are no "licks" in this book. With the exception of Mimi's sample solo over Summertime, this is pretty much straight ahead instruction on using arpeggios to outline the chord changes of a jazz standard. As Mimi writes, this is an excellent starting place when developing soloing concepts for a new song. The book shows you common jazz chord arpeggio patterns, then gives you examples (in tab and standard notation) of how you might go about using the arpeggios to solo over a jazz standard. Since these exercises are chord tone based, you really don't need a backing track to hear the tonality because you are continuously outlining the chords as you play. For example, Mimi's Summertime sample solo stands on it's own without any need for accompanying rhythm to define it's musicality. Don't spend six months learning every exercise in this book. Rather, read the narrative carefully, listen to what Mimi is telling you, listen to her playing, play a few things yourself to get the idea, then start using these concepts in your own soloing. This book really helped advance me as a player. If you are really putting the time into studying the theory and focusing on improvising, it will advance your playing as well.

A Practical Approach to Improvisation
Mimi Fox created a unique yet practical approach to the basics of improvisation. She provides lots of examples that in and of themselves are nice lines to play. Using arrpeggios is a solid basis for lines that have a nice quality. She even goes as far as to provide examples of superimposed arrpeggios which offer a whole new approach to the development of a solid technique as well as a strong basis for improvisation. An invaluable work by someone who understands what's important. Well worth the investment.