Gonzalo Bergara is a amazing musician.
I believe I first encountered his playing via the video he did at DC Music School website… since then I’ve been devouring his playing and instructional material as much as I can.
I reviewed his more recent book last year here: Book Review: The Open Patterns Book by Gonzalo Bergara.
This book i one of two volumes that he self-released many years ago. For the longest time it was out of print and difficult to acquire. However, a few years back he started to offer digital versions of both books on his website.
The concept of the book is simple. Gonzalo chose six songs and wrote etudes over each one.
The songs are:
- All Of Me
- Some of These Days
- Coquette
- Hungaria
- Minor Swing
- I’ll See You In My Dreams
Everything is notated in tablature and has the left hand fingerings indicated. He also explains every bar from the theory aspect as well as giving technical tips. Gonzalo writes in a friendly conversational and there is a lot to digest from his explanations.
He writes in the introduction:
I really, really did not want to write another instructional book about gypsy jazz, there seems to be enough material out there to keep you going for lifetimes. However I found out that none of them had the concept that I used to study music and guitar playing.
The accompanying audio includes fast and slow versions of each track. This is very helpful if you want to play along with Gonzalo. The guitars are also separated in the mix so that you can pan to one side and play along with the chords, or pan to another side and play rhythm guitar if you’d like.
All in all, this is all great stuff and I recommend this to any guitarist who enjoys how Gonzalo plays. This is a great book from a great musician. Personally I have practiced the same All of Me etude for years off and on. Maybe now I will work on another one!
Pros: Great etudes, well written and really idiomatic useful studies for the aspiring gypsy jazz guitarist.
Cons: No accompanying videos with the book. I believe that the original physical book version came with video files.
TLDR: If you like Gonzalo’s playing and want to get material to help develop your gypsy jazz guitar playing, get this.
You can get this eBook here: https://www.gonzalobergara.com/product-page/how-i-learned-vol-1
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[Submissions for Review Consideration]
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