I am really proud to announce the launch of TWO new books that I wrote on March 2nd, 2020: Advanced String Jams and Beginner String Jams. It took me 9 years to publish another book after Cello Chords and let me tell you, it might take me another 9 to do the next one. It’s a LOTTTTTTT of work, but I am very happy I did it.
So what exactly are these books?
Both String Jams books are an opportunity for violinists, violists, and cellists to go beyond classical music and start exploring contemporary genres! For Advanced String Jams, I composed 16 original songs in 15 genres including Hip-Hop, Hard Rock, EDM, Pop Rock, Latin, Synthpop, Film Score, Indian, and more! The book includes sheet music and high quality backing tracks for every song. It’s like you’re playing with your own band every time. This book is recommended for players with at least 5 to 6 years of experience on their instrument.
Even better is that each song has a space for improvisation as well. No experience is necessary with improvisation, I break down how to start going about it and provide cheat sheets in terms of scales and chords for every track. I want students to start diving into creating their own solos, songs, tracks, symphonies, whatever! Just get creative with it. I feel improvisation is a necessary and key element that is lacking in mainstream string education.
Every song has practice backing tracks as well at slow, medium, and performance tempo. Plus there is an improvisation loop track to practice jamming just on the improv section. Finally, I recorded myself playing all the melodies so you have the full tracks as a reference. But I really want students to explore and make these songs their own.
Beginner String Jams is comprised of 8 simplified songs from Advanced String Jams. The keys and melodies are easier, the range of notes is smaller, there are minimal extensions, the improvisation sections only use one scale, and there's no shifting! Beginner String Jams features backing tracks that come in Very Slow, Slow, Medium, and Performance Tempo, so you can practice with the backing track from the very beginning! This book is recommended for students with at least 2 to 3 years of experience on their instrument and again, no improvisation experience is necessary.
I really can’t express how excited I am about these books (also how much work they were to produce, haha). If you want to preorder the books, you can get over a 20% discount before March 2nd, 2020. You can do so here: http://www.bryanwilsoncello.com/stringjams
Thank you all for your support! I am sure you are going to find this book not only super fun, but also really educational.
