Excellent: Chord Pattern Recognition, Not Chord Notes
357532
I'll speak for myself, a beginner who can't read music, has no talent, and no experience; this book is great. It may well be great for those more advanced with talent too. I got Scott's DVD at the library and this technique opens up a whole new world for anyone interested in the piano. His Play The Piano in a Flash is a great reference book and addition to this Fake Book. I bought a competing piano lesson book at the same time and it is nearly useless because of the way it deals with chords. Scott's book gives the chords for each song as a PATTERN RECOGNITION KEYBOARD PICTURE and all of the tutorial chords are based on that. For a novice like me, I care NOT that a C chord is made up of CEG, all I need to know is where to place my left fingers based on the chord pattern not on the notes of that chord. I have learned 7 chords in 1 hour over 2 evenings as part of learning "The Girl From Ipanema" and I can't tell you what those chords are made of but I know where to place my fingers. Scott goes over this in his TV series. The fake book by BN is a fine book but the chords are made up of notes that are meaningless to me. According to Scott, and I fully agree, Chord patterns are key to learning to play by ear. All of the chord patterns are detailed on EVERY PAGE of a song. You don't have to go to the back of the book to find and study the chord, and then flip back to the song to try to play it. You learn the chords using pattern recognition (not notes) for the songs you want to play as you are studying melody notes for the right hand. I can't imagine a simpler method. If you ask me what makes up a C#min, A7, or Dmin chord I'll say "I don't have any idea but give me a piano and I'll show you how to play it". I can actually do that after two 30 min sessions.
476231
There are very few books dedicated to providing rhythm etudes for guitarists.  This is a very nice one for students learning jazz guitar.  It is not really for beginning players, for that you need to learn a lot of the real basic voicings first (a chorus in this might contain way too many voicings for a beginner to handle).  It's defenitely for those who feel like they want to learn a lot of jazz chords, and more importantly, how and when to use them.  Not a chord list (although it does have a very nice one at the end), this is a transcription of Mike di Liddo's comping on the play along tracks.  The comping is very tasteful.  The length of the tracks allows there to be many ideas.  I found myself struggling when I tried to move through the material to quickly, you really have to digest each phrase and internalize it.

It's absolutely worth the money, and probably more, there is so much content!

I must also say I disagree with the two star rating listed here.  I had no issues whatsoever with the layout.  There is no tab, but there are chord diagrams for every chord (easier to read than tab), and the tabs absence makes it much easier to fit a lot of information on one page, rather than spread over 2 or 3 pages.

Really a great comping book for anyone learning jazz guitar.
3555062
I'm re-teaching myself to play. It's very useful to be able to pull up any chord position whenever I need to see it.
1040593
As with all "Piano-Guitar-Vocal" transcriptions, this book is basically a set of lead sheets for the songs on Steely Dan's exceedingly excellent record "Two Against Nature". So you get what you expect from such things...i.e.: the vocal melody and the main melodic musical themes in standard notation (priceless-bass and treble clef, of course) with the little chord boxes for a guitar to play along. The transcriber did a great job nailing the complex chord structures...keep in mind though that the boxes are not necessarily indicative of the actual inversions that the guitar is playing...however, the harmonic structure is absolutely there. So this will not deter real players from using this helpful resource as an enlightened player will take the ball and run with it. Another important work from these truly amazing american songsmiths. This is an EXCELLENT book.
2150370
Sounds pretty great! There's no book amongst the packaging, but I honestly don't care, since the internet flooded with chords and 'how to' videos.
3948074
Celtic harmony differs from the typical I ii, iii, IV, V, vi chordal progression you are used to.  So I am glad I got this book before going to my first Celtic jam.  The book can be used for octave mandolin or guitar as well as other supporting instruments, but the examples seem to be written more for guitar.

Also, the CD is different that what is usually provided with these types of books.  The author tries to provide drills and practice on this CD.  But there are complete recordings of some sample songs toward the end of the CD which are quite nice.  I did not really like the teaching style and found it hard to actually do what he suggests.  Nor did I like his emphasizes a lot of rote memorization.

Modes - are the heart of the book,however, is probably the best explanation I have ever seen on how to use modes to harmonize what a backup instrument plays with the lead.  These pages alone outweigh all other faults in my view.  If you use O'Neill or Skye's or similar transcriptions  you will value this book.  Will will also liberate yourself from the chording  overlay by publishers  and find that other chords improve the group harmony.  This book tells you how to do this.
4601821
This book has multiple chord shapes for every type of chord I could ever think of. There are apps out there that can do much of the same thing, but if you want a physical copy I wouldn't get any other chord book.

As you grow as a player, or when you want to start learning about chords not covered in this book (the sort of chords that don't exist except in the very jazziest of jazz songs), this is what I recommend. Start learning music theory, understand the principles of movable chords, and how chords are formed. Until then, and even a while afterwords, this book is a fantastic reference.
4753400
I bought this book because I wanted to write songs on guitar, and I liked the fact from the previews that the author labeled which songs had which chord progressions. The physical book is great - nice thick paper, high quality printing, despite being a paperback.

I found the material on chords ok, but since I already know about the CAGED system, I'd rather he present the chords that way, which I think is a simpler way of understanding the fretboard. For the lyric writing content, I already have&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Popular-Lyric-Writing-10-Steps-to-Effective-Storytelling/dp/0876390874/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Popular Lyric Writing: 10 Steps to Effective Storytelling</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Writing-Better-Lyrics/dp/1582975779/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Writing Better Lyrics</a>&nbsp;which I think are better. For music theory as it applies to songwriting, I like:&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Writing-Music-For-Hit-Songs-Omnibus-Press/dp/0825672457/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Writing Music For Hit Songs (Omnibus Press)</a>

I think the problem is it reads like an encyclopedia. It's a great achievement by Rikky Rooksby to have done this analysis on chord progressions, themes, lyrics and melodies. But ultimately, any songwriter has to analyze their favorite songs to see how and why they work, and then figure out how to add it to their toolkit.

This is a nice book to have to see all the ways a song could be broken down, but ultimately you have to do the work for yourself.

Good luck!
3255710
I've dabbled in jazz piano for many years to augment my rock chops.  Treating this as a sideline (Until recently - I've started accompanying a standards singer), I haven't had a lot of spare money to spend on it.  I've run into several frustrations with learning jazz piano that this book addresses with varying degrees of success:

1.  Buying bad materials - mistakes are expensive.  Buying this book is not a mistake.  It is much more generally applicable than the "jazzy" major scales, arpeggios and marginally useful patterns that some books throw at you.

2.  Finding good materials - Some of the best hard-to-find materials/tips I have compiled over the years have been the result of long searching and sheer luck - a great find at a used book sale, an excellent teacher (trumpet player!!!) at the community college giving non-credit continuing ed to adults, isolated useful jewels on the web, and occasional inspirations from the ether.  Most of those building blocks are laid out nicely in this book, particularly in early chapters.  To think where I'd be now if I had found this book 20 years earlier. . .

3.  Self-contained books - No book, standing alone, can take you from newbie to virtuoso.  There are printing costs, size limitations, royalities to pay for reproducing songs, etc. and it gets expensive for publisher and consumer when a book tries to do too much.  However, after years of staring at my almost unused Meheegan books, that are useless without expensive and (until recently) hard-to-find fake books, I am quite sensitive to jazz piano books like this one that say, "Go look in your fake book." Jumping between books is a distraction, and perfect matches between fake books and instruction books is unlikely unless the author draws from a specific book (On the bright side, the book recommends two popular fake books).  Copyright laws need to be respected, but I prefer the approach of Solo Jazz Piano:  The Linear Approach (Olmstead ISBN: 0634007610) to this issue - borrow chord progressions from a song like "Laura", and write a new tune ("Flora") to use for exercises/examples.  As a bonus, the new tunes are useful resources for embellishing old tunes.  Another minor frustration is when the book provides a pattern and merely says, "OK, do this in all 12 keys."  I own Finale, and other books do the job for you, but it would be nice to have at least some of these exercises written out completely.  I do like that the book provides a recommended list of recordings for supplemental study, so you know where to go for inspiration when you're not working through the book.

4.  Density - I love to fly through books that give instant gratification.  Who doesn't?  However, such books do not stand up to repeated and extended study, so there is limited bang for the buck.  This book is not that way.  Some paragraphs can take a week or more to work through completely (The sentence, "Now go master this in all 12 keys," is contained in many such paragraphs).  This appeals to my cheapskate side - for the price of one or two piano lessons, this book is packed material that will keep students busy and will reward repeated viewing.

With this book, you're getting high quality and much content for a good price, but save up for fake books and a library of CD's in order to reap the full benefit of this book.
1763781
This is a very good software program for converting printed music into actual music as well as into usable computer midi files. If you are keyboard challenged and have a bunch of old sheet music lying around and want to know what it would sound like, just scan the music sheets into your computer and Smartscore can convert it into karaoke style music with you following the bouncing ball in just a few minutes. Of course there are many other musical uses as well as described in the included 266 page User Manual.
A similar product from Visiv in England called SharpEye, about the same price, does better in accurately scanning with less mistakes, but it has far fewer features.
4101087
I have seen some tough reviews of this. I find this to be an excellent source. I originally stated how it's great for keyboard, to work on chord changes, spark creativity, and whatnot. I still agree with that. but I have come back to it for guitar and it is great. I would not sift through every single page of chord changes, but it is great to open to a page and try some of the chords. some of them sound awesome, and in the process you can alter the progressions, move them in a different location, or let it lead you to altogether different chord changes. for those reasons I give this 5 stars. many to most guitarists and musicians probably look down on the idea of a book "telling you what to play" on the contrary, this is a great launching pad and with my new sweet setup, some of these progressions have led to just hearing them ring out and enjoy the patterns.
516280
Most of this book is about chords.  I do like that it follows a basic chord structure up the neck.  But it's real genius is in the instruction on scales and harmonics.  Based on what I learned in this book, I can easily find any note on the neck, which is absolutely essential to good solo playing.
2282690
A simple way to learn Music theory for guitar without being a professional musician
4264052
Nicely presented in easy to understand. It does making various 7th chords easy to learn. Fine teacher. Love it.
1587132
This is a very nice (and simple) arrangement of 15 jazz standards for 3-4 guitars.  Some basic music reading skills are required since no tab is printed but an intermediate player shouldn't have any trouble with the music.  The multiple parts consist of a melody line, bass line and rhythm line.  This product would've been improved if there was an accompanying CD -- but, alas, that's not the case.
3472650
Great for learning chord positions, note locations, scales etc. Just write them out over and over during the course of a week or more and you'll have it down pat. You can use it for writing tabs too. All in one location and not all over the place like when you print out blank copies  that means you sloppy with paperwork folks.
3199336
At last I found what I was looking for.  I've been playing (albeit poorly) for years and I knew there HAD to be a pattern.  My  neighbors kid taught me Barre cords and when I saw the pattern I KNEW there had to be a formula or pattern for the entire fretboard.  Desi Serna's book has unlocked the mystery and I am enjoying playing more now than I ever did.  When I have a couple minutes, I use this book as a reference and practice.  My son and I both have learned a lot from just this book.  I'll be getting the video soon.