Joe Diorio Giant Steps PDF. An In-depth study of John Coltrane's Classic. In this book, the legendary Joe Diorio takes you through John Coltrane's classic (and very challenging) improvisation vehicle Giant Steps." This in-depth study includes 17 single-note solos, II-V patterns, substitution principles for both comping and soloing, and eight complete chord-melody solos utilizing a variety of harmonization techniques."
This book is not for beginners and even experienced guitarists will find it challenging. However, persevere with this book and you will be rewarded. There are no hot-licks or riffs to dazzle your friends with at jams The book offers little concessions to rock players who want to make a painless transition from blues to be-bop. There are no pentatonic pairs or sweep arpeggios for example.
In addition the exercises are not very guitarist friendly the phrases do not easliy fall under the fingers and it is necessary to make what are often very demanding position shifts and stretches, to play very wide interval leaps. They also frequently use fourth and fifth intervals which require fast string changes to play correctly.
He breaks 'Giant Steps' down into manageable bits to digest. Lot's of ideas presented,(both linear and chordal), including rhythmic variations. If you go through this honestly you can't help but get better.
Joe is the master of the 'cool motif' meaning that his licks are memorable and can be taken out of context even to other genres like rock. In this case 'Giant Steps' has repeating chordal clusters two whole steps removed in general and the astute guitarist will get 20 to 30 excellent riffs for each chordal structure. It seems like alot of work for just one tune but it's very justified. It's even in tab which is shocking ! Joe puts alot of himself into these books and his mental energies when it comes to licks and harmonic ideas seem boundless!
Format: PDF + Audio tracks (Mp3). 46 pages
