Jazz Guitar Etudes by Greg Fishman contains 12 jazz etudes and a CD with three practice tracks for each piece: one with the etude played on guitar, another with the etude played on tenor sax, and another with only a rhythm section. The book sells for $19.95.

Jazz Guitar Etudes is the first of two books I’m going to be reviewing that is NOT written by a guitarist. It turns out that Jazz Guitar Etudes was originally written by Chicago-based saxophonist Greg Fishman as a collection of saxophone etudes that has recently been adapted for guitar. Fortunately for us guitarists, Fishman did not simply transpose his sax studies for C instruments and leave it at that. Instead, he brought a guitarist on board. The guitar edition relies heavily on contributions from guitarist Mike Allemana who provides guitar tablature and relevant ideas of fingering and articulation options. The book also contains detailed notes from both Fishman and Allemana on how intermediate, advanced, and professional level students can use the etudes to further their improvisational skills.

Beyond these few pages of text the book gets right down to business with 12 etudes based on a variety of familiar chord progressions including blues, rhythm changes, and the changes to standard tunes such as “Alone Together”, “Body and Soul”, and “Have You Met Miss Jones”. The melodic lines in each etude are fantastic examples of classic bebop phrasing. Fishman makes the etudes thematic to a point, but doesn’t go so far as to make them sound like sound like tunes so much as really well-constructed solos that are hip and fun without ever straying from the underlying harmonies. There was obviously enough thought put into each etude that you could do an analysis of the material identifying common elements in bebop phrasing. However, just playing through the etudes will provide guitar players with a lot of great ideas to add to their vocabulary.

Once players get the etudes under their fingers they can play along with the included CD. Probably the most useful tracks to play along with are the tenor sax tracks. Playing along with Greg on the sax is a really fun and satisfying experience that will challenge your timing, tone, and articulation. Guitarists who are working to get that horn-style phrasing into their playing will especially benefit from this feature and this is the only book on the market that offers this option.

Below are videos of guitarist Mike Allemana demonstrating this feature with the etudes “Halsted Street” and “State Street”:

I really enjoyed working with this book and I hope that Greg Fishman will eventually make some of his other books available for guitarists as well. I think his books Jazz Saxophone Duets and Jazz Phrasing for Beginners would also translate particularly well for guitarists.

The Guitar Atlas: Japan book & CD by Burgess Speed is a guitarist’s guide to understanding and recreating the sounds of traditional Japanese music.

The book’s first three chapters cover some important fundamentals. Chapter 1 is a brief one-page history lesson which breaks down the history of Japan into five major eras and observes how musical styles have evolved from the sixth century until the present day. In Chapter 2 the author explains many of the the traditional instruments of Japan. These include the shamisen & sanshin (three-string banjo-like instruments), koto (a 13-string harp), biwa (a type of four-string lute), shakuhachi (bamboo flute) taiko, gakudaiko, dadaiko, and tsuzumi (drums) and binzasara (wooden clappers.) Chapter 3 delves into Japanese scales and modes and presents some really interesting insights into how these concepts have been influenced by ancient Chinese music theory which relates concepts such as Yin and Yang and the elements of Wood-Fire-Earth-Metal-Water to the traditional pentatonic Yo and In scales that are the basis for most traditional Japanese melodies.

If you’re not big into history, these first 3 chapters may seem a bit dry, but they are absolutely essential reading if you want to fully understand and appreciate the guitar arrangements that follow. The author makes a point to include detailed background information on each of the songs presented and uses his understanding of the instruments to develop specialized guitar techniques and tunings that that will deliver a wide range of distinctive and exciting sounds from the guitar. Some of these techniques include: using combination of fretted notes and open strings to recreate the harp-like sound of the koto, alternate tunings that mirror those used on the shamisen & sanshin, capos used to change timbre, using a thin pick to emulate the sound of the shamisen, and and the use of bends and legato techniques to elicit a vocal quality in some songs.

There are a total of seven arrangements in the book (and several shorter Kabuki interludes) which are broken down into the following chapters: Folk Music, Classical Music of Okinawa, Shamisen Music of the Kabuki Theater and Koto Music. The two most familiar pieces are “Sakura” (Cherry Blossoms) and “Kimi Ga Yo”, Japan’s National Anthem. All of the other pieces were unfamiliar to me, but I did enjoy trying my hand at them and the 36-track CD was a huge help in understanding how to convincingly phrase and interpret these songs. Below is an excerpt of the traditional song “Sakura” from the CD which is a good indication of what can be accomplished with the techniques presented in the book.

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Guitar Atlas: Japan was definitely a fun journey and I’d recommend it to intermediate to advanced students who read standard notation and tablature and don’t mind retuning their guitar once in a while. Beyond learning about the music of Japan, I also took away some fresh ideas about how to approach my own arrangements using some of the colorful techniques that are utilized throughout the book.

Finally, if the music of Japan is not your thing check out the entire Guitar Atlas series of books. Titles available include: Africa, Brazil, Cuba, India, Italy, and the Middle East.

I recently purchased a new Fishman SoloAmp and was going to write a review, but I don’t know that I have a whole lot to add to the many great reviews that are already available online. Here’s the latest stellar review to hit the web, this one from Premier Guitar Magazine. They also have a pretty well-done demo video at the bottom of the second page you’d do well to check out if you’re considering a SoloAmp.

What I will do here is update this post with my experiences using the amp. I’ve only had it for a few days and have yet to use it on a gig but here are my first impressions:

So far, the SoloAmp sounds great and it’s definitely going to be loud enough to cover all of the gigs I play. It’s got a bit warmth to the sound that many PA and powered monitor-type setups lack and all of the reverb settings are very natural-sounding. The only problem I’ve experienced so far is that the speaker grille sometimes rattled when I played certain notes, but after tightening the allen screws that hold it in place the problem has since disappeared. And my single design gripe is that I wish there was a pair of RCA inputs on the back for mp3 players. I have dozens of mini to stereo RCA cables lying around but no mini to ¼-inchers. Does anyone have those?

Along with the SoloAmp, I also purchased a Tech 21 Blonde pedal, one of the new Tech 21 new character series of pedals. I’ve owned some of Tech 21′s products in the past including the SansAmp GT2 and The Para Driver DI units. While both did a decent job of letting me go direct when playing electric, I was never entirely pleased with those pedals. In particular, I was disappointed with the limited amount of volume available from the clean tones on the GT2, and while the Para Driver is better, I felt that the simulated amp sound lacked character and the EQ knobs weren’t very well-suited to guitar tones. In my opinion the highs were too high and the lows were too low to really tweak a guitar signal into the tone I really wanted.

Well, the Tech 21 Blonde pedal changes all of that. Its got a ton of gain at both clean and dirty settings and really sounds like a Fender amp. Actually, a bunch of fender amps- the character knob lets you dial in a variety of blackface, blonde, and tweed tones, and the EQ settings are much more to my liking than those of the Para Driver DI with the lows being set at 125Hz and the highs at 3.2kHz. The mid frequencies are set at 1kHz on the Blonde (the specific mid frequency varies depending on which of the character pedals you have.)

There’s a good demo video of the pedal in action on YouTube that will give you an idea of what types of tones are available from this little box and if you prefer the tones of Marshall, Boogie, or Vox amp check out the other pedals in the character series. They all sound pretty darn impressive. The only criticism I can offer is that like all of the Tech 21 products, the controls are extremely sensitive and it’s probably going to be difficult to get a perfectly consistent tone from gig to gig.

Wednesday March 25, 2009
So this morning I rehearsed with a valve trombonist for an upcoming duo gig and used my Ibanez archtop into the Tech 21 Blonde running into the Soloamp. The sound was great and he complimented me on it without my having to explain that the pedal was emulating a traditional amp sound and that the SoloAmp was something new. It was especially nice to have my sound at ear-level rater than ankle-level, and I think we achieved a nice blend even without micing the trombone, which may happen in performance.

With the success of the new gear in rehearsal, I’m now looking forward to trying out the SoloAmp in a varietiy of settings including with my jazz quintet. I’ll add to this post as I use the amp out and I encourage others to leave their questions or comments here as well. If I can answer a question for you I certainly will.

Update: Sunday April 26, 2009
Since the initial posting I have used the SoloAmp on three different gigs. Here’s how they went down:

The first gig was a wedding ceremony in which I played “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring” for the bride’s walk down the aisle and “The Gift of Love” for the lighting of the unity candle. I used my Taylor GS7 that’s outfitted with a Baggs M1A pickup and I really was pleased with the results. I set up the amp about six feet behind me and slightly to the side. The only thing that I was slightly troubled by was that the high-end frequencies seemed a little harsher and more present than I’m used to hearing. Of course, the tweeter is at ear level which probably contributed to that perception so I didn’t reduce the highs or the tweeter level too much. The church where the wedding was held has the largest sanctuary in town and when I asked about volume during rehearsal I was told that the volume in the rear of the room was adequate. I received no other comments about the volume – which as far as I’m concerned is great.

The next gig was playing background music for an Easter Brunch. I usually take my Ibanez archtop and a combo to this type of gig so I tried the Blonde/SoloAmp combination. The combination worked well and it was nice to have the amp up off of the floor instead of shooting into the tablecloths, but I don’t know that it was a major difference. I could have done the gig with my regular equipment just as easily.

Finally, I decided to try the Blonde/SoloAmp combination with the jazz quintet I perform with. Using the SoloAmp with The Jazztet felt like a bit a bit of a risk. If it didn’t allow me to blend well with the rest of the quintet or if for some reason my band mates didn’t like the tone I’d be in hot water! As the other members of the band arrived, the amp received some pretty strange looks. But once again, I received no negative comments and best of all I could hear myself better than ever. Afterward, I asked if anyone had any issues with my having used the SoloAmp and no one seemed to have much to say about it other than that the guitar seemed somewhat more present than usual. No complaints though, so I’ll probably use it again at our next quintet job on May 12th.

Update: Sunday May 3, 2009
I used the SoloAmp at an outdoor solo gig last night. I plugged in an iPod for break music and walked around to assess the volume and coverage. The music carried well to the far side of the courtyard and was the perfect volume for background music. I doubt that the SoloAmp would be powerful enough to crank out tunes at DJ volume in an outdoor setting, but for this application it was perfect. Since I was alone on this gig I wasn’t able to assess the volume of the guitars from out front. However I played slightly louder during my sets and received lots of compliments from staff and patrons alike, so the volume must have been just about perfect!

Update: Sunday May 17, 2009
Used at my studio recital…more details soon.

I just got my Ibanez AF120 archtop back form Gene Imbody’s United Lutherie in Jacksonville, Ohio. It only had a bad volume pot, but since the electronics are only accessible from the f-holes I decided not to tear into it myself. I know it wasn’t a big job, but I have to say how pleased I was with Gene’s professional and friendly demeanor, reasonable price, and quick turn-around time.

If you have any guitars or amps lying around in need of repair I’d highly recommend giving him a call. Also, check out the shop’s myspace page and photos where you can get a good feel for the shop and some of the work he’s done.

Be sure to tell ‘em John sent you.