New Guitar Instruction Offerings from Berklee Press

Berklee Press has announced three new additions to its line of instructional guitar products, Jim Kelly's Guitar Workshop, an interactive DVD that lets you look at either the left or right hand, A Guide to Jazz Improvisation by John LaPorta, and A Modern Method For Guitar Volumes 123 Complete by William Leavitt.

Jim Kelly’s Guitar Workshop DVD

Learn to play in the style of Jeff Beck, Wes Montgomery, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Joe Pass, Pat Metheny, and more, in the industry’s first interactive music instruction DVD. Jim Kelly is one of the most requested professors at Berklee College of Music, and in this disk he provides intermediate and advanced guitarists with lessons on a cross-section of modern guitar styles and song forms that reflect the sounds of the masters. Jim Kelly’s Guitar Workshop DVD allows students to select the songs or styles they want to learn, and choose different camera angles to focus on right-hand positions or left-hand picking and strumming. Jim discusses each song, and further explains the techniques used by different artists. Students can tune-up their guitars with Jim and begin playing along as he explains how to master licks and capture the sounds created by some of the world’s greatest guitar players. Styles include blues, jazz, r&b, rock, funk, and Latin, with language tracks in English, Spanish, and Japanese.

A Guide to Jazz Improvisation by John LaPorta

A book that needs no introduction to those in the jazz world, John LaPorta’s A Guide to Jazz Improvisation has helped countless musicians in developing a natural and intuitive approach to improvising. A teacher of jazz improvisation for over fifty years, LaPorta’s unique, straight-forward, and simple approach has become the standard by which other jazz improvisation methods are measured. This book is an invaluable touchstone for every aspiring jazz musician.

A long and impressive list of famous and successful musicians credit LaPorta’s method as key in their stylistic and technical development. As if this wasn’t enough, this new release comes with an interactive CD for ear and performance training, with tracks from a Berklee faculty jazz band! Jazz theory is unraveled and illustrated in this clearly written and amazing book.

A Modern Method For Guitar Volumes 123 Complete, by William Leavitt

Another classic, the William Leavitt guitar method is used as the basic text for the Berklee College of Music guitar program. This series has stood the test of time and earned a vast and loyal following of dedicated guitar students and instructors. By popular demand, Berklee Press has created a compilation of the original volumes 1, 2, and 3. Now serious guitar students and instructors, from beginning through advanced, have the convenience of progressing through all three volumes of this classic guitar method in one comprehensive book. Innovative solos, duets, and exercises progressively teach melody, harmony, and rhythm. The lessons range from beginning scales, melodic studies, chord and arpeggio exercises, and accompaniment techniques to advanced rhythm-guitar, chord/scale relationships, chord voicings, and playing tips. A required possession for guitarists of any level.

For more information, visit Berklee Press on the web at www.berkleepress.com.