Wanting to challenge myself and set the bar high

Hello fellow guitarists,

I was looking into purchasing the Real Book. I am just a beginning player but I greatly desire to take my skills to the level that one day I may be able to play the songs of the pioneers of the Jazz genre (i.e. George Benson, and Wes Montgomery). Is it too early for me to get this book as I have yet to learn how to read music so it looks like a whole other language. Please be as straight forward as possible.

V/R
Kervin Dickson

Originally Posted by: kervin.dicksonI was looking into purchasing the Real Book. I am just a beginning player but I greatly desire to take my skills to the level that one day I may be able to play the songs of the pioneers of the Jazz genre (i.e. George Benson, and Wes Montgomery). Is it too early for me to get this book as I have yet to learn how to read music so it looks like a whole other language. Please be as straight forward as possible.

Great plan! And I don't want to discourage you, but buying a Real Book before you can read music is a getting a little ahead of yourself. :)

Assuming you are working through, or can do everything in Guitar Fundamentals 1 & 2, here is my list of tutorials that outline the general path to follow for learning jazz on GT.

http://www.guitartricks.com/forum/showthread.php?t=36491

Having said that, as soon as you can read music (a skill taught in GF2!), you can get some use from a Real Book. You can start to read the single note melody lines. And since those are the melodies of the great tunes in Real Books, you can learn a lot about jazz & music in general while playing the melody to great tunes!

Now the chords are another story. :) But if you start working on those jazz tutorials, you'll get to a series on extended chords that will help explain all those. But it will take considerable time & effort.

Hope this helps. Ask more if necessary & best of success!