Product Description

A clear, practical, and systematic approach to learning how to play the great variety of scales and arpeggios that give life and expression to the musical ideas of the modern musician.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #594299 in Books
• Published on: 1994-12-31
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 148 pages

Customer Reviews

Very Clear
This is a very clear and well thoughtout approach to the subject of jazz theory. It's one of the best I've seen and it's specific to guitar.

Berle mostly succeeds at accomplishing a very difficult task
I must admit that I have had a lot of frustration using this book. Many of Mr. Berle's riffs and excercises are presented without much context, other than an explanation that the riffs are pulled from this chord or that scale, plus chromatic notes. Thus, it sometimes feels like Berle's book is another in a long line of "play the notes of this scale, in some random order, over this chord" instruction books.

However, I think that this book's problems stem more from the scope of the task that the author has taken on. This is essentially a book for beginning jazz guitarists. Given the difficulty of playing jazz, this is not necessarily a book for beginning guitarists, unless conversant in some other instrument.

This book does not undertake to give a thorough explanation of chord voicings, melodic or harmonic theory, or thinking in a modal or non-functional context. For a better understanding of these elements of jazz, you need to seek out more advanced resources. This book undertakes only an explanation of spotting the diatonic key centers and playing the "correct" notes over a few choice examples of standard jazz changes. This in itself is a significant task, especially since Berle attempts to break down the subject to a level that any relatively intermediate guitarist could understand.

I would recommend this book if you have a smattering of theory and a desire to start learning jazz. For a very good all-purpose resource on jazz theory that covers a lot more ground, I would recommend Mark Levine's the Jazz Theory Book.

If you are not a music reader, don't let the lack of Tab put you off of this book. Berle clearly diagrams every position, and each note has both finger and string indicators. This may be one of the best resources for you to start learning to sight read, and you will need that skill if you want to use the more advanced resources on jazz playing, particularly those that are written for all instruments. The resources in this category include The Jazz Theory Book, the Aebersold series, and Building a Jazz Vocabulary.

A deceptively simple introduction
Like all of Arnie Berle's books, "Patterns, Scales, and Modes" is so well-organized and well presented that it seems almost too simple. Arnie begins by introducing you do basic scale forms, while simultanously present related arpeggios. That's something not many methods do, but it's something that a lot of jazz teachers think should be emphasized from the start. (Some, like Carol Kaye, don't even teach scales, going straight to arpeggions!) And every scale and arpeggio example is presented with excercises designed to let you hear how the examples sound in a real musical context. That's important.

As others have noted, the book is written in musical notation, not tablature, although there are also diagrams showing how scales and arpeggios lie on the fingerboard. Being able to read music is a necessity- but really, all you need to know is the basics: Names of notes on the staff, how key signatures work and so forth. You don't need to actually be able to read for guitar; Arnie teaches you that as he goes along. A sight reader would be able to progress a bit faster, of course. By the time the reader works his or her way through this book they should feel comfortable playing and improvising basic jazz lines in most any context.

Ideally I'd combine this book with Berle's "Chords and Progressions for Jazz and Popular Guitar" (and a good listening library of jazz records). Together, these two books contain all the aspiring jazz guitarist would need to get started.