In years past, fingerstyle jazz guitar books have focused almost entirely on chord melody style playing. Books by great fingerstyle artists such as George Van Eps, Lenny Breau, Jimmy Wyble, Gene Bertoncini and Alan De Mause all dealt with aspects of playing solo fingerstyle jazz guitar. Finally, a book has been written that addresses the right hand technique in playing fingerstyle single note lines. Brad Thomson’s book; Modern Fundamentals 4 Fingerpicking Scales teaches different right hand combinations using free stroke right hand techniques to help develop coordination, synchronization and speed. Mr. Thomson uses fairly easy left hand scale patterns so that all of the focus and practice can be placed on the right hand. The right hand thumb, index, middle and ring fingers are used in different combinations to produced flowing single note lines…This book is a must have for any guitarist wanting to play fingerstyle jazz guitar. I highly recommend Modern Fundamentals 4 Fingerpicking Scales as a great training manual for the jazz guitarist. -David Oakes With his ‘Modern Fundamentals 4 Fingerpicking Scales’, guitarist Brad Thomson has provided ‘fingerpickers’ of all styles with a clear and concise guide to develop versatility and flexibility in their right-hand technique. In a simple but comprehensive way, and with a light touch, Brad’s manual presents a methodical approach to free-stroke scale playing, while leaving ample space to the player’s imagination to build upon and expand on the materials offered in the book. Very useful! -Ricardo Iznaola This book is a great, methodical way to get inside right hand fingerings from an improvisational perspective. In addition, coming from a mostly classical perspective in terms of RH technique, I found myself quite challenged by some of the fingerings…which I feel will open up a lot more possibilities for me over time in terms of being flexible as an improviser. Not to mention, I hadn’t really worked out 5 notes per string in terms of chromatic lines/execution. So there are definitely some great ideas in here that are kicking my @ss! Most of my time is devoted my main instrument, the doublebass, but this will definitely be added to my classical guitar fingering repertoire. -Thomson Kneeland
