The non-jazz improvisation series is a concept that germinated in Dick Weissman's mind while he was attending music school. He wrote a 15-piece arrangement of the old square dance tune, Cripple Creek, and wanted the trombone to take a solo as part of the arrangement. When the trombonist kept playing a bebop solo that was totally unsuitable for the chart, Dick realized that - in addition to the many musicians who do not improvise - there are even jazz musicians who don't know how to improvise outside the limits of their own stylistic backgrounds. The non-jazz improvisation series mostly includes new original tunes that are intended to show how to improvise in many musical styles, including;

* Blues
* Country
* American folk
* Latin-American
* World music including South American, Eastern European and Asian
* Odd meters (playing in a variety of time signatures)
* New Age
* Classical
* Folk-Rock

In short, the books are an encyclopedia of virtually every musical style, excluding jazz. Includes access to online audio.

What you should know before starting this book

Part 1- Techniques of Improvistion
Getting Started
Grace notes
Double, triple and quadruple grace notes
Mordents, turns, and trills
Neighbor notes, upper and lower neighbor notes
Passing tones, diatonic
Passing tones, chromatic
Slides
Tremolo
Improvising with Melodies (Summing up)
A Bit of Music Theory
Major Scales
Improvising with major scales
Melodic minor scales
Improvising with melodic minor scales
Improvising with modes
Ionian mode: Ionian Item
Dorian mode: The Drunken Sailor
Phrygian mode: The Spanish Tinge
Lydian mode: Lydia's Lunch
Mixolydian Mode: Old Joe Clark
Aeolian mode: Shady Grove
Locrian mode: Transposing modes
Specialty scales: D minor hexachord; Pretty Polly
Pentatonic scale on F:, Oh Susanna (part 1)
Pentatonic scale  on C; Shortnin' Bread
Tetrachord: In the Pines
Double stops
Improvising with double stops: Just Lopin' Along
The Missouri Waltz
Using an open string as a drone: Black-Eyed Susie
Improvising with Chords
Common major chords in open position
Common minor and seventh chords in open position
MOvable chord forms
Movable major, minor, and seventh chords
Improvising with chords; arpeggio patterns

Part 2-Tunes and Styles- Country and Western
Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie
Railroad Bill
Country Waltz: Beautiful Brown Eyes
Bluesgrass Mandolin
The Eighth of January
Hammering on
Little Maggie
John Hardy
Banks of the Ohio
Bluegrass rhythm mandolin
Irish Music
The Irish Washerwoman
Straight Jig
Stack O' Barley
Rhythm mandolin in 6/8 time
American Folk Music
Wildwood Flower
Sweet Betsy From Pike
Fly Around, My Pretty Little Miss
ragtime 
Temptation Rag
Grandpa's Spells
Gospel
White Gospel: Will the Circle Be Unbroken
Black Gospel: Wade in the Water
The Blues
Blues progressions in G, D, C, and Bb
Blues scales in G, D, C, and Bb
Blues in G
Mandolin Boogie
String bending
Rockin' the Blues
Odd Meters
5/4, 7/8, 9/8
Five Times Four
The Other Bela
Odyssey in 9/8
Exotic scales
Chromatic scale
Whole tone scale
Klezmer Music
Misherabach: Chosen Kalle Mazel Tov
Harmonic minor: Havah Nagilah
Fraigish or Greek scale: Goodbye to Piraeus
Gypsy scale: Gypsy Fantasy
Japanes scale: The Geisha's Lament
Chinese scale: The Golden Bell
Banjo Rolls and Crosspicking
Little Maggie variations
The McReynolds roll
The Eighth of January (complete with crosspicking)
Railroad Bill (banjo roll with melody)
Playing with other people; Planning your arrangements; 
Developing an original style
Recommended books and recordings