Allan Holdsworth -- Just for the Curious: Book & Online Audio (CPP Media Video Transcription Series)

Though his music may not be for everyone, Allan Holdsworth is one of the world's greatest guitarists. That is reason enough why so few can play at his level, but guitarists in general tend to play much like other guitarists with relatively slight differences in technique, note choice, sound quality, etc, by which we are able to distinguish between them. Holdsworth is an exception, a masterful musician who happens to be a guitarist. "Just For The Curious" is a detailed outline of his absolutely unique approach to the instrument, showing how he crafts his unusual lines and arrives at chord voicings that just don't lend themselves well to typical chord-spelling and/or numbering analysis (b9b5, 13b9, M7#11, etc.) Of course, a well-placed b9b5 moves the world and Holdsworth uses these kinds of chords too sometimes but in this book he shows you how to generate those new sounding chord voicings that seem to be his alone and account for some of the singularity, power and beauty of his very original music. It will have you putting your fingers in places you probably never would have otherwise and saying "Ah, that's how he plays that!"..."Ow, how does he play that?" and "Oh, how can I apply this method to other scales and modes to create more of these new chord voicings?"

Allan seldom used "licks". Oh, he had a few figures he returned to now and again, but his improv playing was just that. Improv. There is really no "how" to do this, except to practice making the fingers of your left hand independent from one another and to avoid "patterns" that lock you into this many or that many notes per string, or "positions" that inhibit you from seeing all the notes in a scale on the neck.String skipping and hybrid picking are other things you can practice to develop techniques that help you truly improvise, rather than parroting Allan note-for-note. That may be interesting as a study, but may not fruitful for your own improvisational voice.

This is great way to keep yourself busy. Put one of his weird chords or changes on a looper then read and play the scales. Yikes!

An insight into the inner workings of the mind of one of the musical genius' of our time, a must for those wanting to understand Allan's unique approach. He doesn't give away too much but gives you enough to make your own way through conventional harmony the Holdsworth way!

Allan is a great musician. His insight about music is very useful to all musicians. In my opinion, this book is not only for guitarists.

Met all my expectations

Very good product

Most of the book is a dive into scales that an intermediate player would already know. Part of it is about his idiosyncratic approach to chording, which is a tiny bit interesting. The rest is transcriptions, which are probly the most useful part of the book.