Blues Piano : The Complete Guide with CD!

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Blues book for intermediate players
Review: I got this book along with a number of other blues books, and this one has been my favorite. It doesn't contain as much material as the multivolume Alfred series, but I find the organization, presentation, and *especially* the examples to be superior in Mark's work. The way the examples build section by section and chapter by chapter is exquisite. They are musically interesting yet very focused on the point at hand--I always enjoyed playing through the examples, but was never confused by unnecessary complications.

The companion CD is the best I've seen in any music instruction book, ever. Most examples have the left and right hand parts on the left and right channels, so you can mute one speaker or the other for "hands seperate" practicing. I personally don't use this much, as I prefer to work it out with the metronome, but I'm glad it's there and you may appreciate it. On tracks that have a backing band, the band is on one side and the keyboard on the other so you can play along to just the band. Finally, the "complete" examples at the end of the book feature a "slow" and "fast" version on the CD. One nitpick: I wish he'd included (in the text) the metronome settings he used, making it easier to practice/jam without the CD.

I've got several of the Hal Leonard books in this series, and they're not all by Mark Harrison. His books are definitely a cut above. All in all, if you have any interest in the subject whatsoever, you can't go wrong with this book.