Major & Minor (For all Instruments with 2 Free Audio CD's): Learn to Improvise Jazz: 24 (Jamey Aebersold Play-A-Long Series)

Bought this book in order to practice scales and learn more about modes and how to use them. It is very helpful in this way, everything is there. Major, minor, arpeggios, chords, etc... But I have to say, I am disappointed with the play along CD. You can play along to it, but the performance and quality of the recordings are so lifeless, that it kind of puts you off playing along. At least it does to me. It sounds like the musicians were bored senseless while recording the tracks. Therefore, you can do it, but it's not very encouraging. It is worthwhile for the written part, just a bit disappointing musically.

Logical order of keys and well-recorded backing tracks. Print a little small in places but the book is stuffed with material. Highly recommended for anyone starting out on the rocky road to improvisation, especially if you have a teacher who is familiar with the book and CD. Mine develops the exercises, and demos other ways of using the material to reinforce my knowledge of keys......especially the ones with lots of sharps and flats that hitherto I have avoided!

Perfect and good price.

This 79 page book is crammed with exercises and they are suitable for instruments playing in C or Bb or Eb, and both treble clef and bass clef are covered. So, for example, if you play both the alto and tenor saxophones then you don't need to buy additional books.Whilst the title of the book provides a good indication of the contents, it includes more than just major and minor scales in every key. It also includes the bepop scale; chromatic scales; blues scale; pentatonic major and minor, and modal scales.Exercises include scales (of course) in every key. The backing tracks can be used to practice the scales and this improves timing and musicality, as well as bing a more enjoyable way of practising. The accompaniment consists of a drummer, piano and bass and they play with precise timing.Also, and importantly for improvisation, there is a selection of licks (short musical phrases) and these can also be played over the relevant backing tracks.Examples of improvised solos are transcribed in the book and these greatly assist with articulation, phrasing and dynamics when listened to on the CDs.Two backing CDs are included with the book, one is slow and the other (you guessed!) is performed at a faster tempo.Besides including plenty of music to play and practice, the book has tips, guidance and instructions on how to perform and improvise.This book is linked to other books published by Jamey Aebersold, but it can be used as a standalone study book or with some of the others in the series. I think this book would be most suitable for a beginner with help from a tutor, or a player who had mastered the basics and wanted to improve improvisation theory and technique with particular respect to chords and scales. I am working my way through this book. There's plenty to keep me occupied, and i think that it the kind of practice book that you could return to over and over.