Melodic Rhythms for Guitar

Great book. Fun to play. Intermediate level in my opinion. You need to incorporate the chords for the full experience. Record or loop the chords and play with yourself. I think the chords are the most difficult aspect. The rhythms are not difficult but you should play with a metronome to make sure you play in rhythm. You'll have to figure out what positions to use for each study. The first two studies work well in second position. This is also a good book to practice reading. William Leavitt also has a method series that is very good.

This is one of the best sight reading books I've come across in awhile. You can get a lot of mileage out of the exercises in this book and I think it's one that guitar teachers out there should have to work with their students on sight reading. First off you can use the same exercise multiple times to explore different positions on the guitar, helping you or your students become more familiar with the fretboard. The melodies are all single line and unfingered so you can focus on playing the notes rather than playing the fingerings (a trap some guitarists fall into.) What's really great about this book is that you can also work on your rhythm and counting at the same time as you're working on sight reading. The other Leavitt book on sight reading is mostly in eighth notes all the way through, this book has all kinds of great rhythms that are syncopated and spicy that will literally force you to keep on your toes and count if you want to play the exercise correctly. Also you can either get together with a friend or play with your teacher or student, because there is a lead sheet attached to each exercise. Playing in this duo format is another good way to practice sight reading because it forces you not to stop and make corrections and to move forward and keep reading. So to recap on why I think this book is an essential to anyone's sight reading library, you get to work on fretboard knowledge which gives you multiple uses of each exercise (lots of bang for the buck), you work on single line reading that is approachable even for poor readers, you get a good solid rhythmic workout with each exercise which reinforces solid musicianship, and you can play alone or with another person which besides being fun, is just another great way to practice ensemble playing and sight reading. Check this book out it's a solid buy.

Let’s face it, guitar players don’t read very well. Selecting positions for Notes is challenging since we have so many options. Additionally, if you’re not used to site reading, rhythmic structures can complicate things. This book does a great job of starting you where you’re at and methodically taking you through, many challenging but not overly challenging etudes.

I like how you have to figure out the chords and work out which ones are the easiest to get to using the knowledge from the WL Vol Guitar method.Once you can play the chords you can start to see how 2 to 3 notes of the chords are used to voice the tonesand you can play your own version of the tunes. Good Book for learning rhythms.

I wouldn't be caught dead playing any of these exercises in anyone else's presence but you can always reharmonize and throw out the childish phrases once you've mastered the exercises and then they can be interesting assuming you know how to do that. This book forces you to think in terms of rhythm which can be immensely helpful to your improvisational skills. You get many variations on 4/4 and 3/4 time but no grace notes, 16th notes,sextuplets etc. You can always play around with those variations once you master the basics in at least a few positions and octaves. I suppose this book is aimed at beginning to intermediate guitar students(beginners could play these melodies while I think it would take an intermediate student to play the chordal accompanyments which are pretty good especially with the suggested extentions. The reason I bought the book is it gave me ideas just reading through the teaser pages and I wasn't disappointed when It arrived in the mail. It will help your sight reading skills but if that's all your interested in, you've only brushed on the book's potential. A more advanced follow up book would be nice which would include more advanced rhythmic concepts and perhaps cooler melodies and harmonizations.

There are many books on guitar rhythm, but this book is worthy of special attention. William Leavitt in his book gives not only rhythmic patterns; after the patterns he proposes to implement these patterns in melodic phrases and figures. This distinguishes the book from other textbooks. It is no exaggeration to say that the book has not lost its value over the years, and every guitarist should have this extremely useful tutorial on his desk.

This is one of the only books you need to learn to read real world guitar literature, jazz, classical and anything else really. Extremely helpful and promising results with regular practice. Easily worth the money even after one practice session IMHO

This is not a book I would have just bought to practice out of. Then my guitar professor made this book a requirement. I have to say I'm glad he did! This book has elevated my playing in a short time. The exercises aren't easy though, especially if you are new to jazz. but they are musically pleasant, not boring and you will learn a lot from each one. If you're serious about learning how to play guitar this book will help you get to a higher level.

All the required rhythms are there !A must have in your practice routine!Another great product !Michel

Well, I am classical guitarist. I had problems of sight reading I just bought this , I practiced the jazz chord, then solo, I tried sing the solo. It improved by far my ear ,, excellent book,

Gli studi sono musicali (niente capolavori, ma almeno non sono scale su e giú). Seguite i consigli riguardo la pennata, e la vostra lettura delle sincopi, e del ritmo in generale, subirà un miglioramento drastico. Libro da avere, tiene il livello di sfida sempre costante e progressivo, senza essere mai frustrante.

Un buen libro para prácticas ritmos con las guitarra.

譜読みにピッタリの教材でした。リズムパターン毎に分かれているので、苦手なリズムを見つけることができます。