Flying Fingers

Rating:
Summary: Very Dated -The Title is misleading
Review: I just got this book and let me tell you you are better off not buying this. This book primarly deals with arpeggios and nothing else. No legato, no real picking exercises or anything like that. All the exercises are dated, like late 80's Neo Classical dated. If you want to play like Yngwie, Vinnie Moore, or the rest of the bunch this book will put you in the right direction. 12 or 13 years ago this book would have helped me but today it surely won't. I think this book is for beginners. Any one who has played guitar for more than a couple years won't benefit from this junk. I'm suprised they still print this or at least didn't revise some of the material for more of todays players like Satriani, Vai or Eric Johnson. I'm very let down by this book.What a waste of 12 bucks! If I could return it I would.

Rating:
Summary: short, but gets a point across
Review: I remember when I was back in high school and first saw this book advertised in a musician's friend catalog. I thought, "Wow, flying fingers! That'd be sweet!"

Years have passed, and I finally acquired this title, for the dual purpose of satisfying my curiosity, and also to get free shipping on the rest of my order. After going through it and listening to the CD, there are several aspects of this work that I have to reflect on, most of which are positive.

The first thing that the author goes over are types of vibrato, and their application. This is probably the most detailed explanation of vibrato that I've encountered. This is a useful technique to master - most educators who claim to teach "metal" or "hard rock" guitar demonstrate it at one point or another. Mr. Celentano also goes on to show how combinations of these techniques work in application, and afterwards uses the technique throughout the examples he shows in other sections of the book.

Three styles of picking are demonstrated. These are, really, just combinations of what we know as either alternate picking and sweep picking - circular picking being a combination of the two. Unfortunately, the author neglects the areas of tapping and pick/tap combinations (which he goes over in his other publications) and hybred picking (using pick and one or two fingers on other strings). The latter is understandable, since the author's main focus is heavy metal soloing.

From there on, Mr. Celentano goes over various scale patterns and sequences. These are great for exercising, but by no means is this to be considered reference material for guitar exercises. Most of these are examples, that prompt the student to come up with his own licks and riffs for technical development.

A very neglected area of this book is chords. I think that it's important to learn how to use leads and chords in combination, if one is truly to acquire "flying fingers." The exclusive focus on leads makes this a rather one-sided perspective on guitar technique.

Mr. Celentano also includes several pieces that require use of combinations of techniques covered in this book. Most of these compositions are original, and they aren't bad, albeit a bit cliche. But, as I said, the author effectively demonstrates a method of approach to technical development. The drawback of this publication, is that most of the actual development is left up to the student.

If you're a beginning guitarist, this may not be for you. However, for someone who has gotten the basics, this may be a useful developmental tool. Use of discretion is advised, in deciding whether or not to purchase this - if you're willing to work on your own to assimilate the material in this book, then this is for you. If you want a more guided approach, a good recommendation would be Troy Stetina's book on Speed Mechanics, rather than this one.

One last note: the tablature and standard notation (which is the style of presentation used throughout) reflect a hand-written quality, and are sometimes difficult to read (9 looks like 7 on tablature, stuff like that). I found this to be another minor drawback.

Rating:
Summary: short, but gets a point across
Review: I remember when I was back in high school and first saw this book advertised in a musician's friend catalog. I thought, "Wow, flying fingers! That'd be sweet!"

Years have passed, and I finally acquired this title, for the dual purpose of satisfying my curiosity, and also to get free shipping on the rest of my order. After going through it and listening to the CD, there are several aspects of this work that I have to reflect on, most of which are positive.

The first thing that the author goes over are types of vibrato, and their application. This is probably the most detailed explanation of vibrato that I've encountered. This is a useful technique to master - most educators who claim to teach "metal" or "hard rock" guitar demonstrate it at one point or another. Mr. Celentano also goes on to show how combinations of these techniques work in application, and afterwards uses the technique throughout the examples he shows in other sections of the book.

Three styles of picking are demonstrated. These are, really, just combinations of what we know as either alternate picking and sweep picking - circular picking being a combination of the two. Unfortunately, the author neglects the areas of tapping and pick/tap combinations (which he goes over in his other publications) and hybred picking (using pick and one or two fingers on other strings). The latter is understandable, since the author's main focus is heavy metal soloing.

From there on, Mr. Celentano goes over various scale patterns and sequences. These are great for exercising, but by no means is this to be considered reference material for guitar exercises. Most of these are examples, that prompt the student to come up with his own licks and riffs for technical development.

A very neglected area of this book is chords. I think that it's important to learn how to use leads and chords in combination, if one is truly to acquire "flying fingers." The exclusive focus on leads makes this a rather one-sided perspective on guitar technique.

Mr. Celentano also includes several pieces that require use of combinations of techniques covered in this book. Most of these compositions are original, and they aren't bad, albeit a bit cliche. But, as I said, the author effectively demonstrates a method of approach to technical development. The drawback of this publication, is that most of the actual development is left up to the student.

If you're a beginning guitarist, this may not be for you. However, for someone who has gotten the basics, this may be a useful developmental tool. Use of discretion is advised, in deciding whether or not to purchase this - if you're willing to work on your own to assimilate the material in this book, then this is for you. If you want a more guided approach, a good recommendation would be Troy Stetina's book on Speed Mechanics, rather than this one.

One last note: the tablature and standard notation (which is the style of presentation used throughout) reflect a hand-written quality, and are sometimes difficult to read (9 looks like 7 on tablature, stuff like that). I found this to be another minor drawback.

Rating:
Summary: short, but gets a point across
Review: I remember when I was back in high school and first saw this book advertised in a musician's friend catalog. I thought, "Wow, flying fingers! That'd be sweet!"

Years have passed, and I finally acquired this title, for the dual purpose of satisfying my curiosity, and also to get free shipping on the rest of my order. After going through it and listening to the CD, there are several aspects of this work that I have to reflect on, most of which are positive.

The first thing that the author goes over are types of vibrato, and their application. This is probably the most detailed explanation of vibrato that I've encountered. This is a useful technique to master - most educators who claim to teach "metal" or "hard rock" guitar demonstrate it at one point or another. Mr. Celentano also goes on to show how combinations of these techniques work in application, and afterwards uses the technique throughout the examples he shows in other sections of the book.

Three styles of picking are demonstrated. These are, really, just combinations of what we know as either alternate picking and sweep picking - circular picking being a combination of the two. Unfortunately, the author neglects the areas of tapping and pick/tap combinations (which he goes over in his other publications) and hybred picking (using pick and one or two fingers on other strings). The latter is understandable, since the author's main focus is heavy metal soloing.

From there on, Mr. Celentano goes over various scale patterns and sequences. These are great for exercising, but by no means is this to be considered reference material for guitar exercises. Most of these are examples, that prompt the student to come up with his own licks and riffs for technical development.

A very neglected area of this book is chords. I think that it's important to learn how to use leads and chords in combination, if one is truly to acquire "flying fingers." The exclusive focus on leads makes this a rather one-sided perspective on guitar technique.

Mr. Celentano also includes several pieces that require use of combinations of techniques covered in this book. Most of these compositions are original, and they aren't bad, albeit a bit cliche. But, as I said, the author effectively demonstrates a method of approach to technical development. The drawback of this publication, is that most of the actual development is left up to the student.

If you're a beginning guitarist, this may not be for you. However, for someone who has gotten the basics, this may be a useful developmental tool. Use of discretion is advised, in deciding whether or not to purchase this - if you're willing to work on your own to assimilate the material in this book, then this is for you. If you want a more guided approach, a good recommendation would be Troy Stetina's book on Speed Mechanics, rather than this one.

One last note: the tablature and standard notation (which is the style of presentation used throughout) reflect a hand-written quality, and are sometimes difficult to read (9 looks like 7 on tablature, stuff like that). I found this to be another minor drawback.

Rating:
Summary: Play the electric guitar with some REAL sound!
Review: If you're looking forward on playing fast and with a rock, heavy metal sound, this book is for you! Contains 32 examples and it's played in 3 different speeds and with tablature. Improve on speed and learn how to pick faster. Play with melody and add some color to your playing.

Rating:
Summary: I regret wasting the money
Review: This book is horrible, uninstructive, and short. There's about twelve pages of tab, with "helpful hints" such as "now try alternate picking," or "now practice your sweep picking." As mentioned earlier, all of the tabbed runs are very eighties, very classical sounding, and, unfortunately, there is no instruction geared towards re-applying the tabbed runs in more contemporary settings. Buy another book, or better yet, just buy a metronome and practice, practice, practice.

Rating:
Summary: I regret wasting the money
Review: This book is horrible, uninstructive, and short. There's about twelve pages of tab, with "helpful hints" such as "now try alternate picking," or "now practice your sweep picking." As mentioned earlier, all of the tabbed runs are very eighties, very classical sounding, and, unfortunately, there is no instruction geared towards re-applying the tabbed runs in more contemporary settings. Buy another book, or better yet, just buy a metronome and practice, practice, practice.

Rating:
Summary: Very Dated -The Title is misleading
Review: This is a great book with great excercises. This has all the techniques for playing fast, (except tapping). Anyone wanting to play fast with great musical quality should get this. The licks in this book are classical sounding, and you will get good at sweep arpeggios with this book, I promise.

Rating:
Summary: Flying Fingers by Dave Celantano
Review: This is a great book with great excercises. This has all the techniques for playing fast, (except tapping). Anyone wanting to play fast with great musical quality should get this. The licks in this book are classical sounding, and you will get good at sweep arpeggios with this book, I promise.