Most helpful customer reviews
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Scale Your Way To New Musical Heights, Mar 18 2001
The unassuming cover gives no indication of the "musical" wealth within its stark white pages of black notes on staves. And there is only minimal explanation in purely music terms of the major components of its contents. But for the serious musician, this challenging and comprehensive book of over 1300 scales and melodic patterns will definitely expand your musical vocabulary, no matter what instrument or musical style you play. All the examples are written in standard notation for "C" instruments in both treble and bass clefs (like piano, guitar, bass). Application for "non-C" instruments needs on-the-spot transposition but that shouldn't present too much of an inconvenience. If you're into songwriting, composing or arranging orignal music, this book is a cavernous "idea barrel" that will serve you well when you need some extra inspiration or as a reference to write out that "idea" accurately in the correct harmonic fashion. If you're a performer striving to shape your own musical expression, this book will be a wonderful tool in your hand. According to legend, John Coltrane used Nichols Slonimsky's THESARUS OF SCALES AND MELODIC PATTERNS to practice from during the period that "Kind of Blue" was recorded.(see page 71 of "KIND OF BLUE-The Making Of the Miles Davis Masterpiece" by Ashley Kahn) One note of caution, it offers no suggestion for technical proficiency or fingering in how to play these scales and patterns, you will have to figure that out by yourself. But that will allow you the maximum joy of self-discovery as you portage your way through these pages to your ultimate musicial destination.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Resource (if and when used in the proper context !), Dec 11 2000
Written primarily for composers of modern (classical) music, the Thesaurus was a relatively obscure text offering a glimpse of a controversial and rarely explored world beyond conventional scales and Western Tonality - - The book began to gain popularity in the Jazz world when it was found that John Coltrane had been dabling in it and suddenly it rose from obscurity. - - If you're thinking of purchasing this book as sort of a "woodshedder's bible" be forewarned... unless you understand the rocket science of chord/scale relationships (etc. etc.) and the concepts behind the scales, you'll probably be wasting your time. At minimum to appreciate this book you need to know more about the scales you already use than that the reason you can play them over a certain change is that Aebersold Volume 6 told you you could. On the other hand, if you can play tunes, changes, and understand how and why tones are chosen and selected, this book may offer some powerful stuff. The important thing to realize is that the material in the book is HIGHLY applicable, however, the book will not tell you how to apply it. Your insight and understanding will be required. So in conclusion, do not be fooled... if you're looking for a "cool" pattern book, or to learn how to improvise in general, or even want to learn how to sound like Trane, this is definitely NOT the book for you. If on the other hand you're already an advanced improviser, can listen to a solo and understand the "concepts" and the process of how tones are selected... and want to experiment with and development further ideas get this book. Check out Amadea's Jazz Improv : How To Play It & How to Teach it for an interesting approach on developing lines... or an interesting book called "Tons of Runs" if you're looking for something more along the lines of interesting patterns to play.
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1 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
an engaging oddity, April 10 1999
By A Customer
An engagingly idiosyncratic work, worthwhile at least for the improbable and imaginatively named chords appended to its end. But beware: its author does not list all 351 subsets of the chromatic scale, nor does he eschew redundant transpostional equivalencies, nor does he ever suggest how we might apply his scales. A much more useful work of this kind (just as fascinating in its way) is Jeff Burns's PENTATONIC SCALES FOR THE JAZZ-ROCK KEYBOARDIST.Also recommended: PENTATONIC SCALES FOR THE JAZZ-ROCK KEYBOARDIST by Jeff Burns.
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