ISBN 9781609746940. The most complete and comprehensive handbook outlining the role of the guitar in the music of Cuba, Brazil, Columbia, Mexico, and other South American countries in print. A complete survey and guide for any guitarist interested in performing different styles of Latin music. Each chapter examines the styles common to the music of a featured country. Includes a thorough exploration of the history, common instrumentation, core rhythms, guitar patterns and chord voicings, transcriptions, application, and provides musical examples in each style.Students will explore: Mambo, Cha-Cha, Samba, Bossa Nova, Cumbia, Vallenato, Baion, Bolero, Rumba Flamenco, and Contemporary Latin PopGCajust to name a few! Students may choose to focus in on one style or sample many. This resource book contains valuable knowledge guitarists can also utilize in application to a multitude of branch styles (jazz, smooth jazz, pop, rock, and the ever GCo growing Latin Music market), including what to play with an ensemble.

I hope you will enjoy this note-for-note transcription of the wonderful Verde Selva by the great Flamenco guitarist, Juan Serrano, from his 1965 RCA Victor recording Popular Music of Spain and the Old World. Verde Selva is a rumba, a rhythmic dance that has its origins in Cuba, becoming a part of the flamenco tradition in the 19th century in Andalusia, Spain. The playing technique used by Serrano in Verde Selva is often referred to as Rumba Melodica due to its use of arpeggiated chords rather than the rhythmic strumming that is typically associated with rumbas. As it is typical for Flamenco guitarists to improvise and change their pieces with subsequent performances, Juan Serrano\'s Verde Selva evolved over the span of his career, resulting in two versions of the piece; the first, featured on the 1965 vinyl LP Popular Music of Spain and the Old World (the basis for this transcription) and the second, in the 1981 Mel Bay publication Juan Serrano - Flamenco Concert Selections, which included Juan Serrano\'s own transcription of his then current version of the piece, along with the recorded track on the included audio CD. Although it is this 1981 version that is performed by guitarists, today, it is my fondness of the 1965 Popular Music of Spain and the Old World recording that inspired me to transcribe this rendition of Serrano\'s Verde Selva, a transcription which had not before been released to the public. Although this transcription is note-for-note to the original recording, liberties were taken only in one regard in that repeats were added in some sections to give more length to this beautiful piece.

An arrangement of traditional themes of the Flamenco style (palo) Alegrias de Baile (Alegrias for dance) that I acquired during my years of study with Juan Gonz�lez ?Triguito? in Madrid in the late 1960s. The title of the piece that contains bright and happy passages in A major and slower more somber passages in A minor is taken from the name of a popular alcoholic drink that is a mixture of clear anisette (sol) and cognac (sombra). The composition is meant to resemble an Alegrias played in accompaniment to the dance, often performed by a solo woman dancer (bailaora) in a beautifully coloured long flowing dress. The piece finishes with a Macho por Buler�as (finale) that is almost twice as fast as the passages in the introduction and middle parts. There is a long beautiful tremolo passage that rounds off the middle part before the jump into the finale. The piece is recommended for students of Flamenco guitar at the intermediate to advanced intermediate levels.