Five Element (Wu Xing) Qi Gong – Tom Bisio

Add a touch of the islands to your guitar playing! The wild pulses, danceable syncopations and playful lyrics of this traditional folk-based world music will spice up your entire repertoire. Highlighting a variety of fingerpicking and strumming patterns, tempos and keys, Bob details all the elements of the single- and double-tone forms.

You’ll master the components needed to play hundreds of calypso, tango, samba, waltz, mazurka and Latin-jazz songs, plus an array of substitutions and variations. Songs: “Uncle Joe,” “Down The Road,” “Death Calypso,” “Poor But Ambitious,” “Cinemascope Calypso,” “The Five-Year Plan,” “It Happened In Monterrey.”

Review: “You’ll enjoy this lively hour and a half lesson with Bob Brozman even if you’ve never thought much about adding tropical sounds to your guitar playing before. In a relaxed and informal manner, Brozman plays and demonstrates several approaches to Afro-Caribbean rhythms using songs including “Uncle Joe,” “Down the Road,” and “It Happened in Monterey.” He emphasizes the ways that melodic and storytelling aspects of these songs support each other, and gives tips on fingerpicking and strumming patterns that work with salsa, samba, calypso, and Latin jazz interpretations of them. Then, as he says at the end of the tab/music booklet which accompanies the tape, it’s up to you to mix and match to create interest .Thanks to Brozman’s instruction, you’ll have solid skills to do that on your own.” – Jazz Times