Martin Taylor Beyond Chord Melody: Master Jazz Guitar Chord Melody with Virtuoso Martin Taylor MBE Kindle Edition

First of all, when someone named Martin Taylor does a book about guitars, you gotta pay attention! I am just beginning to get into playing jazz guitar. I consider myself an intermediate guitar player (4 1/2 years, DVD/on-line taught) and prefer mostly fingerstyle classical and early rock (can't sing worth a hoot, so strumming a song is lost on me). Martin takes you through many examples that at first all look alike.... but each example sneakily builds on the previous one until you get that 'WOW!' moment when the 'I can't do that' becomes 'I now know it cold... along with the theory as to why and how it works'. Don't fret... the theory also sneaks in with no pain. Anyone looking to expand their musical repertoire as well as theory should get this book today.

This book teaches a structured approach to something I've been attempting haphazardly on my own for many years. I am constantly attempting to write guitar arrangements using simultaneous lines, and so Martin Taylor's insights come just in time. This book is not for people who are looking for note-by-note transcriptions, but rather people who wish to create their own arrangements. There's a lot of information and encouragement from the author, and I recommend this to anyone wanting to expand their musicality.

This is a very dense book. By that I mean that there is a great deal of useful information packed into its pages. It feels as though Taylor is "overlaying" different topics in a way that reinforces them and helps to build skills that extend beyond the specific topic covered. I use this book several times per week in my studies, and I think it's making me a better guitar player. My one wish is that this book had been available forty or fifty years ago.

While no one would question Martin Taylor's chops and ability, what makes this book work for me is the organization of the content by Mr. Alexander. I think the success of this book is in that combination of participants. Taylor knows his solo guitarwork, but Mr Alexander brings the material across in a step by step, coherent manner.Part 1 delves into components of solo chord melody, (intervals, string sets, bass lines, etc) and gives a solo player the opportunity to begin to understand these constituent parts, to dissect the fretboard into meaningful, useable elements, and how they weave together to make an arrangement come alive!Part 2 pieces together these raw elements, and if (realistically) its not exhaustive, it certainly gives a solo chord melody guitarist a significant leg up in the process of understanding what it takes to build your own arrangements, as opposed to simply playing other folks arrangements.Ultimately, lots of good material to work with here, and the willingness to work at it is essential. There are no short cuts! But the book is a useful guide to one man's approach to the subject!

As a long standing fan of Martin Taylor's instructional material I thoroughly enjoyed this little book - informative, concise, inspiring and above all great fun to work through. A great sequel to the Martin Taylor Guitar Method which breaks down the complexity of jazz guitar into easy to understand foundational concepts.

The most approachable guide to the guitar I have ever read. I’ve been playing guitar for roughly 30 years and I have never come across a more efficient way to approach the guitar neck. Forget drop-2 and drop-3 voicings and go straight to Martins genius approach to explain jazz chord building. Absolutely genius!

Martin Taylor's book Beyond Chord Melody is not only insightful, but essential, especially to guitarists looking to expand their performance opportunities to include solo playing. Hobbyists will get a great deal from the book also. I have been doing solo jazz guitar gigs as a part of my repertoire for 25 years. I have been a huge fan of Martin's for about 15 years. His "approach" to developing solo guitar repertoire is unique and spot on. The Fundamental Changes book itself is crafted with the highest quality. Everything in this book is relevant. Get it!

I would absolutely recommend this book as an introduction to chord melodies on guitar. I hope you find the following comments helpful.I like that this book starts at the very beginning with basic fundamentals and builds up from there. Every lesson builds on the foundation established by previous lessons. For example, you'll start by playing simple 10ths of a major scale up the neck using just 2 strings, practice getting your first finger off the bass note to make it available for playing melodies, then transitioning intervals across strings, then adding 7ths, then melodies, and on and on.After getting you through the fundamentals, the book presents an end-to-end chord melody arrangement process using an original tune composed for the book. The arrangement process includes melodic lines, bass movements, inner voice movement, harmonies, and melodic variation.While this book provides some practical guidance on technique, the primary focus (and value) is a systematic approach to chord melodies that will not only help you understand arrangements that you encounter, but will give you the tools and skills to create your own.

This book contains a lot of the information in The Martin Taylor Guitar Method book, albeit in an updated format. If you have the original book, or even if you don't, then it's worth checking out Beyond Chord Melody.There are lots of musical examples to help you get Martin's style of chord melody under your fingers. The examples get more and more difficult as the book goes on but it is satisfying to be able to play them if you stick with them.The basic of Martin's style are quite easy to get your head around and even an intermediate player will be able to follow the clear instructions and gradually build up their own arrangements.The tab is very clear and easy to read as is the printed text.I would recommend this book if you are interested in jazz, or even interested in arranging pop chord melody arrangements. As I said, Martin's instructions are clear to follow and his system is quite simple, but you can come up with some sophisticated sounding passages once you really dig deep.

It's difficult to be sure exactly who this is aimed at. The book's intention is to encourage guitarists to go beyond straightforward chord-melody playing and develop a polyphonic approach. As someone who has been playing for over 20 years, and experimented with chord-melody styles for most of that time, this appealed to me because I wanted to refresh my playing and improve my abilities as a jazz guitarist.The first half of the book (which is under 100 pages long) takes a brisk tour of the building blocks: basslines, sevenths and tenths, and the CAGED system. This is very useful, and it's always good to take stock of these things, but half is a large proportion for something I am basically familiar with. Conversely, for a guitarist who is only just starting to think about solo guitar, it is probably a bit too brisk, and there are more comprehensive guides to an area that merits a lot of work.The second half of the book takes an original melody by Martin Taylor and shows how he would apply the concepts explored in the first half to a real example. This is much more useful and I have begun to apply these concepts to my own arrangements.If you haven't tried solo guitar playing before, this book may be a little daunting, although if you enjoy a challenge and are willing to work at it, this book does provide a lot of areas to investigate. If you feel more secure in your abilities and are looking to improve, there are also a lot of areas to explore, but you may need to skip material you are already familiar with. The book could probably assume more knowledge as there are already plenty of resources for less experienced guitarists.The audio examples and two video lessons which can be downloaded, are very useful although they feel like an added extra.

Its hard not to be impressed by the virtuosity of Martin Taylor and whilst I will never aspire to getting close it is none the less good to try and see how far you can get. I have followed Martins video courses and also purchased His Guitar Method by Mel Bay but can say that this book is the most thorough at building his approach from the ground up. You find that its not about knowing all the fingerings for multitudes of chord extensions but having a thorough knowledge of the fretboard and being able to harmonise the major scale. With this knowledge there are plenty of exercises within the book that teach you how create movement within the bass, melody and inner lines. Add a bit of chromatics and that's it. The book also culminates in a thorough examination of how the method it applied to a take on Autumn Leaves. Knowing how Martin does it is great to know but it leaves you just as amazed that he can create so much movement on multiple levels at the same time. Polyphonic as he calls it. Good Luck!

This is a very well written book . The language is very clear and many audio examples are provided to illustrate the the topics. It will take a lot of work from the student to get the full benefits of the book as Martin and Joseph are providing you with the tools to create the finished article and you should view this as a long term exercise not a quick hit particularly if you normally play with a plectrum

Easy to follow, simple but very effective methodology for rooting second or third fingers on bass notes, therefore leaving fingers available for lower or higher fret positions to play chord and melody notes. Reduces jazz chords down to the essentials of 3rd and 7th notes so you get to develop an ear for what type of chord is needed next. Deals with the physical practicalities of playing chord melody.