Pentatonic Khancepts: Book & Online Audio Paperback – October 1, 2002

This is and Steve's other book are two of the best books in my guitar book library. I only have a few I have found useful and these are certainly that. The cd is great and all examples are on the the cds and there are backing tracks for your own exploration. Steve's theoretical breakdown of the application of the scales is crucial and I don't feel he missed covering anything. Also, his examples are musical and don't sound like he dumbed it down for teaching purposes. This boo and his Chord Khancepts will definitely inprove your MUSICIANSHIP! I also suggest visiting his website as tehre are many transcriptions with fantastic analysis that I find iseful. I can only compare the quality of this material to the Ted Greene material available but this is more digestible and can be utilized immediately.

If you have been working with pentatonic scales in a blues/rock context, this is an excellent way of extending into jazz/fusion. Well written, with interesting examples and excellent practice tracks - this material concentrates on using pentatonics for improvisation, rather than just learning riffs. I have four books on pentatonics - this is by far the most usable.

Great book! Helped me to break thru to another plateau in my playing. Thanks!

Before starting this book, It'd be best if you know your major scale modes (i.e. church modes) because Steve makes reference to them with the assumption that the reader knows them. Also, if you bought Steve's Chord Khancepts book and are thinking about studying it and this one, I'd go through Chord Khancepts first because he references it a few times in this book. One last prerequisite: have perfect vision or a good prrescription because the text is tiny!The pentatonic ideas in this book are presented primarily from the minor pentatonic perspective, so if you're thinking in major pentatonics, you'll have a lot of translating to do. If you're okay with the minor pentatonic perspective, this book provides valuable information about which pentatonics you can play on minor, major, dominant, altered dominant and minor 7th flat 5 (i.e. half-diminished) chords.One small bone of contention with Steve's concept of the "Dominant 7th pentatonic" that he gleaned from listening to McCoy Tyner. I'd call that a Dominant 9th arpeggio (1 - Maj2 - Maj3 - 5 - min7). For that matter I'd call a major pentatonic scale a major 6 add 9 (M6/9) arpeggio, but I digress.There are several sections of this book that lead to confusion in the naming of intervals. Many times Steve will refer to a mode like, say, Locrian. He will then inconsistently refer to intervals in it. For example he will explicitly name the 3rd as a m3rd (correct and specific - it is a minor 3rd), then refer to the 5th as a b5 (which is correct, but now mixing in b5 instead of dim5 which is more consistent with minor 3rd). So b3 and b5 would match together better with m3 and dim5 matching together. Still, just that's just a small inconsistency, but then he refers to the 6th and 7th with no mention that they are the m6 and m7 (or b6 and b7). It took a while playing the major 6th / 7th and having my ears scream at me to realize that he wrote the intervals in a mish-mash way. Without already knowing the locrian mode intimately, I would have been lost as to which type of 6th and 7th to play! After realizing that I continued through the book, but saw those inconsistencies all over the place.As per custom, on to the typos:I don't know if my copy happened while the printer was running out of ink, but Alfred has blank stems all over the place: Pages: 26, 30, 49, 58, and 59. Inconsistent interval naming throughout.Would like to have given this book 5 stars for its insights, but too annoyed by the issues.

there is more to pentatonics than you think. great book.

very good!

Thank you!

love it