Complete Guitar Improvisation Book Paperback – Illustrated, March 20, 2015

Summary: A jazz oriented soloing book whose author has an obvious clasical background. Nevertheless, even the most hardcore shred metal player will find himself challenged and enjoy the numerous exercises.Pros: A great technique builder, shows (and really makes you learn) the most important scales, modes and arpeggios combined with a lot of chords. It does provide some serious jazz licks but it mainly focus on developing a complete command of the fretboard (and boy it really does an excellent job on that matter). I've never seen any book that demmands as much as this one does to the student.Cons: It could be a little better organized. Some Items are inserted for no reason between chapters in what it seems to be an efford to update the book.Minimal requirements for anyone interested in this book:- It has to be a sight reader, or at leats have a good command of the first and fifth positions. The book does present an introduction to music reading but it's clearly not enought for what it demans of the student later on. For example, it introduces position reading and two pages later is asking you to play Paganini's Perpetual Motion in 3 different positions at at least 180 bpm, a task obviously impossible for someone who has just been introduced to position reading. (I stronggly recommend reviewing MI's Music Reading for Guitar before starting here)- A funtional knowledge of major and minor scales in the first position would be nice to begin with. Those scales are introduced and later used to show chord and arpeggio building and constitutes the base where modes are constructed. Having a good command of this will make a much easier and pleasant begining to this book.- Same comment here with chords, a good knowledge of basic chords is advisable.Book's reviewVincent Bredice's Guitar Improvising is an old book that has been published since at least the 70's. The author is a College educated jazz player with a solid background in clasical guitar and was the teacher of the great Joe Diorio. In this book, he focused in providing the student a solid knowledge of the fretboard while increasing the student's technical habilities so he won't have any problem finding the proper pitches to express his ideas nor have any limitations to the same goal due to poor phisical preparation of his hands.The curriculum includes scales, arpeggios, modes, sightreading and a LOT of very demanding exercises that for sure will greatly improve the student stenght and speed if he's willing to play them all as instructed (as it happened to me). The scale (and modes) coverage not only includes scales in one and two octaves but scales that begins in the first fret and goes ascending and descending until your guitar runs out of frets (literally). On a personal comment, the "snake" scale playing exercise is the most rewarding exercise I have ever encounter in any guitar instruction book, and I do own more books that I can count.The same happens with arpeggios, one of the advantages of using standar notation only is that the reader has a lot of choices to apply the fingering he considers the most apropiate or, in any case, using as much diferent fingerins as he can (or want)getting in the procces a deeper understanding of the fretboard. And when the arpeggios exercises cover almost the entire fretboard the challenge is great and the rewards are even greater(of course, if you are willing to face that task).Besides the enormous cover of scales and arpeggios the book does includes performance pieces like Paganini's Perpetual Motion and Bach's Invention in Fm and some jazz patterns and jazz licks. Now that we're talking about it I have to include a comment at some of the flaws of the book. In what it seems to be a attemp to update the content of this book, some sections were inserted in between the chapters. This insertions include information about pentatonic scales and some lick but it doesn't quite fit the context of the book itself, for a start this insertions contains tablature, wich is odd since anyone who has reach that section obviously doesn't need a tablature. Besides, I can't find the need for including some Funk comping pattern right in the middle of the book without any relation to the content of that section in particular.Eventhought, these flaws are minor specially if you have in mind the enormous value of the rest of the content. One more thing, the author is VERY demanding to the student, in most exercises it says "beging slow but maximun speed is esential" and at some point it stands that the student must learn "at least fifty" songs (jazz standars) along with studing these book. Those demmands - and a lot more others related to the exersises and examples - might seem overwelmig at first but eventually you'll find you could handle them, and the results are amazing, you'll surprise yourself that's for sure.Finally, this book is jazz oriented but is the habilities it provides are useful for any stile of music. Is very advisable that you suplement this method witha good book (or books) of licks in your favorite music style.

This book is old school, in the sense it demands substantial effort from the user but also offers substantial rewards. If you are looking for a more "casual" approach to improvement, I can recommend the "Guitar Lesson Goldmine Series." There is nothing casual about Bredice's book.As other reviewers have indicated, this book is not suitable for beginners. You should probably be a solid intermediate guitarist before tackling this book. Even then you will find some of the exercises challenging.The book is sufficiently dense that I have found it impossible to work on every day. Instead, I am using it as a supplement to other material and trying to devote 2-3 hours a week to it. After approximately 18 months I am less than half way through. A more serious (or talented) student of guitar might be able to get through the entire book in 12-18 months.This is truly one of those books for which you get out what you put in, and in full measure. A very good book, but not at all an easy one.

I've been playing guitar now for 15 years. I have taken college courses on guitar playing and chord theory and I've tried to follow other books that would enlighten me in relation to the guitar fretboard. No other book is quite as thorough as this one in opening up the fretboard's mysteries. It provides exercise after exercise and drills ideas into you by making you practice them a certain way. The first few pages provide exercises that are difficult but learnable. This book is not for a novice, or someone picking up the guitar for the first time. You need to know the basics of note reading in the first position and some background in scale and chord theory. You need to make sure that you learn each exercise before moving on to the next one. If you follow each exercise and progress through the entire book, there is no reason not to believe that you will become a very accomplished guitarist and musician. However, I believe that it could take a beginner or intermediate guitarist a few years to learn (really learn) each and every exercise presented by Vincent Bredice.If you are a novice guitarist I would recommend: The Guitar Handbook (by Ralph Denyer) and/or any version of: The Complete Guitarist (by Richard Chapman). Please keep in mind these books are for the novice or beginner. Bredice's book is for the intermediate guitarist or the advanced guitarist.This book will open up the fretboard to you in a new way, a way that does not cut corners but makes sure you understand what you are doing and why you are doing it from a musical standpoint. If you are looking to cut corners (tab reader) look up the Guitar Grimoire series. If you are dedicated (as any true guitarist should be) you will love this book and what it has to offer you.

This is an amazing book if you want to learn all the ins and outs of the fretboard and is very heavy on music theory, each page is very dense with information. The only downside is that you need to know how to read music tablature (the book does go over how to read tablature) and the book demands a lot of attention and time, which for a starter can be overwhelming but nevertheless not impossible. Overall it’s a great book if you are willing to commit to getting through it.

An awesome book. A great tool and yes there are no tabs. Vincent Bredice was among the greatest guitar teachers ever. He expected his students to be able to read, so there was no need for tabs. He taught some of the greats, including Joe Diorio. His books are for those prepared to commit themselves to being the very best musicians possible. I am not objective - I had the privilege to study privately with Vince for three years 1981-1984. His love and commitment to his art was only exceeded by his love for his students and his beautiful wife.

Better then Leavitt's 3-volume method