What’s wrong?! Why do y’all look so perturbed? You didn’t want it to be good?
Oh. You want me to say WHY it’s good, what’s in it and stuff like that.
*sigh* OK, sit down…

I’ll skim through the book and tell you what I see and read some of it to you. Of course I won’t give his lessons away; I’ll just tell you what his lessons are.
________________________________________________________________
Introduction:
--WHAT IS ROCK HARMONICA?--
The blanket term “ROCK” is used to describe a musical genre that covers over six decades…blah, blah, blah…The question for this book is “What does Rock mean to harmonica players?”

--WHAT THIS BOOK HAS TO OFFER YOU--
You’re a harmonica player with some blues roots… in fact you love the blues, but deep down inside you rearn to Rock! You and your buds think yo can blow pretty well. That’s where we start. You can move around the harmonica well. You know how to bend-maybe not with a lot of control, but you can do it. Possibly you’ve dabbled with tongue-blocking-but not seriously. You’re extremely turned off by music theory, but you know you’ll need some of it to be able to keep up with the other musicians, and you hate the feeling of not knowing what’s going on or how to deal with blues songs not using standard blues progressions.

In this book you’ll learn:
*How to control your bends better (half step control)
*Speed licks
*How to play super bluesy (notes and texture)
*How to play and construct hooks (the main element of Rock songwriting and accompaniment playing)
*How to deal with and play over the common chord progressions used in Rock
*Music theory and how it relates to playing Rock Harmonica

You’ll learn how to play the most famous Rock harmonica instrumental of all time, Magic Dick’s “Whammer Jammer!” And on top of this, I’ve written an original Rock instrumental for you (“Butter Strut”), that’s much heavier in feel and more progressive in nature-to contrast with the more classic. “Whammer Jammer.”

WHAT YOU’LL NEED
C and A major diatonic harmonicas (this is the standard ten-hole harmonica), a CD player and the time to dig in and learn!
________________________________________________________________


Besides the tables of content, that was just the first page. Do you want me to go on?

Oh, CRAP!! Alright.

Chapter 1---A Word About Notation and Emboucher
Chapter 2---Bending
(how to, what notes can be bent, some exercises)
Chapter 3---Scales For Improvising
(Two scales in this chapter: Major pentatonic scale and Blues scale. Lots of exercises to go with the CDs that come with this book. There are also improv exercises.)
Chapter 4--Speed and High-End Licks
(This chapter…uhm…It’s good.)
Chapter 5---Power Licks
(It’s not just licks, but how to make licks in general sound good. LIKE ALL THE CHAPTERS, this has plenty of tips & tricks and exercises and CD tracks…)
Chapter 6---Decoding Music for Improvisation
(Several pages of theory)
Chapter 7---Common Chord Progressions
(12 bar blues, 16 bar blues, 8 bar blues, 2 bar progressions, etc.
Chapter 8---Hooks, Heads & Sequences
(Self-explanatory)
Chapter 9---“Whammer Jammer” Song Study
Chapter 10---“Butter Strut” Song Study
Chapter 11---How to be a Great Rock Harmonica Player
(This chapter is written by Jason Ricci. It contains more insight rather than instruction. The instruction contained in this chapter can pretty well be summed up in two sentences:
Study other forms of music, especially Blues and Country, but ESPECIALLY BLUES.
Don’t be afraid to break the musical rules once you know what they are.

Let’s see…Did I leave anything out?
Well, yeah! It ain’t my place to read all the tips & tricks and lessons to you, ya know.


BTW:
The two CDs that come with the book contain a total of 91 tracks.

Edit:
Oh, I did leave something out. How does this book pertain to Rock music in general? I've only briefly skimmed the book, so far, but I've seen references to texturing notes by hitting the next one up a little bit (This technique is also used in blues), I've seen reference to straight eights being used in Rock as well as swing eights, Jason mentions effects and volume, I've seen David mention something like "Listen to 'Stray Cat Strut' for an example of this" and many of the licks are Rock-sounding licks.

Another Edit:
Now that I've dug a little bit deeper into it and listened to some tracks, I gotta say: THIS BOOK IS A HELLUVA LOT MORE FUN THAN HIS BLUES BOOKS!!!



Post Edited (2011-04-01 01:48:29)

OK, now that Jeff's seen my farce-of-a-review, this one's better on top

Maybe this book will be the one that finally inspires me to practice stuff a little more seriously and make some progress.

I've gotten to the first scale (major pentatonic) and intend to play that over and over for days until I can do it in my sleep, and then move slowly through the lessons.... IN ORDER. In the past, I've always done lessons in books and as soon as I could fumble my way through it, I was like, "Good enough. This stuff's boring. I wanna get to the good stuff." That attitude has gotten me nowhere. This time I want to REALLY LEARN the lessons, and this book leads in the direction that suits my taste.

I went to Google and googled Rock Harmonica which led me to Google books. There it show several pages of the book. Has a real good explanation on bending. Shows some of the exercises and chords progressions, scales for improvising and other stuff.
Thought it would give anyone a first hand look at what it's all about. I think I may just check it out myself. My problem with the books, also like gene said, is not taking my time and wanting to jump ahead. Maybe this one can tell me the stuff I'm wanting to know and keep me on track.