The GuitArchitecture Book Series

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The Short Story:

as of this writing (3/22/12) I have four guitar reference/instructional books available for purchase.

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• The GuitArchitect’s Guide to Modes: Melodic Patterns 

• The GuitArchitect’s Positional Exploration 

• The GuitArchitect’s Guide to Modes: Harmonic Combinatorics 

• The GuitArchitect’s Guide to Chord Scales

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All of them are available individually here (lulu.com) in both print and pdf editions

or here as a 4-book PDF bundle.

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Here’s the longer story:

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Back in 2008,  I wanted to write a guitar based book about my sonic visualization process I call GuitArchitecture.  My thought was that it would be a combination of instruction and reference and different in scope from anything I had seen (outside of perhaps the Van Epps series).

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That initial book, The GuitArchitect’s Guide To Modes, became a 2000+ page monstrosity that had too much information for publication.  Two things have happened with that book:

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• The core of the book (approximately 250 pages) is being excerpted, adapted and serialized on the web (and may be published for people who want an expanded hard copy in 2012).

• The bulk of the book has been broken down, edited and expanded  into a multi-volume set to be released over 2011-2013.  The time line for these is below.

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(For those of you who are interested in the books and the approach, you can read (quite a bit) more about the story behind the books here.)

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2012-2013

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All of the following editions are available in print or digital (PDF) form. 

Several books were released as preliminary editions  in 2011, with final editions (i.e. bound copies) released in 2012.

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• The GuitArchitect’s Guide to Modes: Melodic Patterns 

• The GuitArchitect’s Positional Exploration 

• The GuitArchitect’s Guide to Modes: Harmonic Combinatorics

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The GuitArchitect’s Guide to Chord Scales was the first book book completed and released in 2012.  The plan is then to publish at the leisurely pace of 1 or 2 books a year for the next 3 years.  

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• The GuitArchitect’s Guide to Modes: Chord Scales (Released 3/12!!)

• The GuitArchitect’s Guide to Symmetrical Patterns For 12 Tone Improvisation (Expected to be released late 2012)
  

• The GuitArchitect’s Guide to Modes: Modal Arpeggios (Expected to be released in 2013)

• The GuitArchitect’s Guide to Modes: Modal Pentatonics (Expected to be released in 2013)

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The text that started it all:

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There are several reasons behind my decision to serialize The GuitArchitect’s Guide to Modes for free on the site.

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• Almost all of the information in the books draws from material and approaches from the initial text, and ethically I had a problem selling a book to people with every other page stating, “for more information about this – see The GuitArchitect’s Guide To Modes.”

• I wasn’t happy with the writing style in the initial book.  Additionally, my pedagogical approach shifted from the first draft and I wanted a chance to make the material more accessible.

• From a promotional standpoint, it made sense to have a lot of free information up to drive traffic to the website.  This blog as a place I promote things that I’m working on, plug my releases, performance services/musical gun for hire/ writing services and teaching.  In posting material from the book, I can make this the most informative site that I can where people can go to casually check out material and gain information and hip them to – what I believe to be – a really innovative book series that’s different from anything else out there.

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Still, some people have indicated that they would like a hard copy of the book, so it is very likely that an (expanded) version of the modes book will get released in 2012.

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As always, thanks for reading!

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-SC