Pumping Nylon by Scott Tennant
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Book Reviews of Pumping Nylon
Book Review: Some good exercises, but. it needs revision
Summary: 3 Stars
This review applies to book the book and the DVD.
Incorporating these technical exercises into your practice will yield rapid improvement. But a lot of things could be improved. For instance, a lot of space is wasted in the "Horizontal Character Builders" section where 3 pages are used to show the exercises on all 6 strings when it would have been adequate to show it on 1 string--it was a good time to use the word, "etcetera". And, Tennant also failed in this section to suggest using the same exercise using finger pairs 2 & 3 and 3 & 4. He also bores us on the DVD and takes up valuable space by tediously showing each finger combination for most of the warm-ups.
Most of the exercises aren't original and Tennant misses the opportunity to add some originality. For instance, a good suggestion would have been to practice the right and left hand walking exercises without looking at your hands, which is the how much of what we play is eventually accomplished. And, many of the left hand warm-ups, especially the finger independence stretches should be attempted first on higher frets where the stretch is easier, e.g., 6-9, and then gradually translated to frets 1-4. Though Tennant does encourage exploration, most students will blindly follow the leader.
Most of his example pieces are inappropriate in a book of this nature. The pieces are way too advanced for focusing on technique--you'll spend more time figuring out how to play the pieces than utilizing the technique. For instance, after Tennant presents the basics of how to barre, he offers two pieces written by his buddies Andrew York and Brian Head that are only appropriate for the advanced intermediate player. They, and other pieces, are much too complicated for the average guitarist to bother with. Simpler pieces would have been more appropriate.
The companion DVD addresses only basic material, how to hold the guitar, how to pluck a string, how to file nails, etc. And, it's disappointing that there is only one DVD that only covers the daily warm-up exercises. I was looking forward to seeing Tennant play The Spider and Odair's Favorite Drill played with blazing speed and the flamenco fragments played at speed. So, in addition to many of the examples being inappropriate in a book of this nature, they're not even recorded on the DVD! Now, I realize that there wasn't room on just one DVD for everything, that's why there should have been additional DVD volumes of the exercises. Also, since there are no metronome markings, you're left to wonder exactly what speed you should try and achieve and what some of the exercises and pieces would sound like when played fast. It's good to know what ideal to strive for.
Tennant makes the same mistakes on the DVD as in his book. For instance, near the beginning of the DVD, after explaining the difference between the rest stroke and free stroke, he plays an illustrative piece by Dowland called The Frog Galliard, (which isn't even in his book). The piece is much too advanced and played way too fast for a beginner who is trying to focus on learning the rest and free strokes to get anything from. There are dozens of slow, simple pieces by Giuliani, Carulli, Sor, Coste and others which are in the public domain, and that would have provided the beginner with a good insight into the application of rest and free strokes in a piece of music. He also states (incorrectly) that rest strokes are mostly for renaissance and baroque period pieces which might lead some students to not practice them if all they wanted to learn was Sor, Tarrega and other more "modern" composers.
Tennant is an excellent presenter and a lot is to be gained from watching this video and there is a lot of valuable information in the book. But the book badly needs a revision and a good "weeding-out" and more DVDs need to be made covering all the book's material with simple, relevant examples substituted for The Frog Galliard and other poor examples.
Book Review: Left hand exercises and sitting technique
Summary: 3 Stars
I bought the book and DVD package. I would not buy the book alone; and had I known there was not one single song taught, I would not have bought the set. Scott plays Frog Galliard by John Dowland but does not break it down or provide the music to it. I suppose there is enough there to learn it by ear and eye watching him play it, but the music and/or tablature would have been a huge help for me.
There are a lot of good exercises... I suppose. They will build dexterity in your left hand for classical style playing. (how about a song or two) Scott shows you how to sit and how to hold your guitar. He also shows you how to trim your finger nails. If all I did was play guitar, this would be useful stuff. I actually like to do things that require my hands and I cannot keep my nails long and manicure them. So that info is useless to me. Basically, if I had known what the content was I would not have bought it.
Book Review: book
Summary: 3 Stars
I'm sure I'll enjoy this book.I liked the fast shipping, and I would do business with this seller again.Book Review: Emphasis on technique, NOT music
Summary: 2 Stars
After playing all the exercises in this volume with three students I will say this work is probably not great for anyone.
It MIGHT be good for those who sight-read like robotic stenographers and who also lack the imagination to invent their own exercises. Otherwise, it can only benefit the publisher and author who stand to make a few bucks from the misleadingly macho title.
My opinion is based on these observations:
--- Technique is supposed to be a means to an end, not the end itself. This focuses on tricky techniques, speed and endurance, not good composition or musicality. Trivial scalar and arpeggiated passages might impress the uneducated or inexperienced. They will do little to develop understanding of music theory or a marketable repertoire.
--- The exercises herein are derivative; nothing new or unique. Though most may be legally "original" in the non-plagiarized sense, they are sophomoric. Any intermediate classical musician will immediately recognize these are miniscule excerpts of popular lute and guitar works that have merely been lengthened or expanded by an immature player attempting to impress equally immature students. First-year students will have have already confronted these techniques in standard guitar literature. You would do much better to learn an entire Bach piece from beginning to end, even with flubs, than to master every vapid trick in this book.
--- This work will only serve to depress, mislead and confuse those who might otherwise show some interest in classical guitar. The author is only showing speed and volume chops, not an inspiring educated love for music, the instrument or the genre. Very little concern is shown for tone production or interpretation. That's because there is little here to "interpret." Play it. Play it faster. Play it louder... that's all this is.
--- The reading, though rudimentary, looks complicated to neophytes, and is therefore intimidating. It does not progress in any logical fashion from one lesson to the next. This only serves to squelch student-motivation, not nurture it. Swirling Ant-hills of notes in Sharp-keys do not help students learn to read or understand music. The exercises here are of the same dull sensibility as other Über-dweebs; as if Arnold Schwarzenegger or any other self-absorbed, muscle-bound, Teutonic-twit attempted to play guitar.
--- The tittle indicates a complete misunderstanding of musical discipline. Either that, or the work was commissioned by a profiteering publisher using a quasi-developed player as his dupe. Maybe this title is an artifact of modern fixations on superficial power over spiritual depth. In which case, the author deserves some respect as a moderately-clever but misdirected & opportunistic marketeer. The title obviously appeals to shallow guitarists.
If you have experience playing classical guitar, you are free to disagree with these opinions.
If you have any experience TEACHING guitar, I doubt you will.
Book Review: Simplicity is the Seal of Truth
Summary: 2 Stars
As an ancillary album to develop a degree of left and right-hand finger independence, there might be some small merit in adding this book to a beginning guitarist's arsenal of learning aids. However, I did find the breadth of the technical exercises notably lacking, and pairing them with musical pieces pegged at an advanced intermediate scale of proficiency was a notable flub, as the overwhelming content of the book is clearly driven to the sensibilities and proficiencies of a neophyte.
As another reviewer has noted, the emphasis seems to be focused on theatricality through technical mastery, rather than expressiveness and musicality through technical fluidity.
The scattershot and unstructured approach of the book was a continual source of consternation, and would only serve to befuddle and thwart the interest of someone fresh to the instrument, as they would be basing their assumptions on what constitutes normal advancement on a collected set of exercises that shouldn't be paired in one album. As a notable example, the book begins with instruction on the correct way to hold the guitar, and follows this up several chapters later with an exercise to promote one's tremolo speed. How to plant the right-hand fingers on the guitar strings, and further along in the book, how to improve one's scale speed.
If anything, the book will serve only to deflate interest rather than ignite passion, as the guitarist moves from the technical exercises to musical studies not in keeping with the timbre of the book; following the lay-out logically, a beginner would be left with the impression that he had committed some notable error in deciding upon the classical guitar as their mode of musical expression; progress would seem illusory if not completely unsustainable.
Apart from individual guitar instruction, which few can afford either in time or expense, a better alternative would be one of the many methods produced by the notable composers for the guitar from the 19th and 20th centuries. All beginners would note a greater dividend by investing their time in J.K. Mertz's "Schule fur die Guitare", the early Sagreras' guitar lessons, the easy Aguado studies, rather than purchasing this book in hopes that practicing the "Horizontal Character Builders" will lead to something other than a debilitating injury in the hands of a new player.