Adam Rafferty is an amazing guitarist with so much musicality and experience. I first discovered his playing via one of his early solo fingerstyle guitar video covering Stevie Wonder’s I Wish on YouTube. Since then, he’s developed an amazing career touring as a solo fingerstyle guitarist (funky fingerstyle guitar to be exact). This was how our paths crossed years ago when he did some performances in Kuala Lumpur. Before focusing on fingerstyle guitar, he was as an accomplished jazz guitarist performing with legends like Mike Longo and Dr. Lonnie Smith.
This book documents his thoughts and practice strategies to develop virtuoso single line technique for jazz guitar. Even though this book has been available since the year 2000, I still haven’t found another book quite like it!
It’s not just the material that makes this an important book. The gems are the actual explanation and practice tips Adam shares in the book. He takes exercises based on “The Virtuoso Pianist” by C.F. Hanon and has adapted them for guitar. In addition to that, he also includes “The Moody Scales” and diatonic triad and diatonic 7th chord arpeggios exercises. These exercises, when practiced correctly are very effective. In short, every time I’ve worked on even one of the exercises, my technique has improved.
In conclusion, if you feel that your picking technique and coordination needs work, I would recommend this book!
Pros: Great material that is very well presented.
Cons: None.
TLDR: If you need to level up your single note playing chops, this book is invaluable.
Get your copy here:
https://www.adamrafferty.com/virtuoso-jazz-guitar-technique-book/
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