Recommend me a book?

Skodadad

I have decided my new year resolution is to learn some guitar specific music theory.
I have zero knowledge on the subject so could anyone recommend me a good book or two to get me going? I know lessons would help but whilst my partner is happy for me to take them I have to be realistic in that we can't honestly afford what I would need to learn as it would probably be a year's worth minimum of weekly lessons. A book also gives me the chance to learn at my own pace. Thanks

mike_l

The Musicians Institute book Harmony & Theory is very good, and comprehensive. And, more to the point, makes you think about things, IE it's a workbook, rather than just being a bland text book.

Published by Hal Leonard, number HL00695161 Authors Keith Wyatt & Carl Schroeder.

Skodadad

Thanks mike_l

EricTheWeary

Never seen that but Wyatt is a very clear instructor so sounds promising.

mike_l

No probs.

I'm working through it myself, so know how useful it is. Also I prefer to have to think about things, as just reading text can be mindnumbing, and unproductive.

DulcetJones

As music theory itself isn't just guitar specific I would go with starting at the start and working through a theory tutorial first(unless you have already).  These basics made a world of difference to me in so many areas, composition, counting, working and communicating with other musicians and learning songs by ear.   Timing and counting were one of the biggest problems advanced guitar students needed work with when I was teaching, a lot of them showed up that could rip through any scale or mode you asked them to but when they tried to play a solo over a piece of music their lack of counting and timing skills made them sound awful even though they were playing in a scale that should have sounded great.  

richh

Chord Chemistry, by Ted Greene?

StanleyAccrington

Guitar Theory For Dummies. It's good. Starts off at dummy level then progresses to intermediate level.

ChrisMusic

How Music Works

This puts things nicely in context.

Not a book I know, but I find fully immersive media a better way to learn, so if you have some time off over the festive break why not check these programs out ?

There is also an index to some other resources in the thread.

http://thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/11491/how-music-works

fingers

For me this is the best book by far. Incredibly skilled player too. Check it out. I downloaded mine straight onto the ipad.

http://guitartheoryandtechniquebook.com/

57Deluxe

The Delta of Venus...

wizbit81

All jazz guys will tell you 'The Jazz Theory Book' by Mark Levine. It's not really just jazz, and it's an absolutely excellent book. Totally recommend. 

octatonic

richh said:

Chord Chemistry, by Ted Greene?

Terrible book for learning theory.

It is basically a dictionary of chords- it tells you very little about how to use them.

Leftynproud

Hi, I notice StanleyAccrington mentioned Guitar Theory For Dummies, well I learned theory from the author Desi Serna, yes he's an American, but his other books come with the option of dvd's to support his teaching and he's really good http://www.guitar-music-theory.com is his website, you can get some freebie stuff by email if you sign up. Hope that this helps.

frankus

octatonic said:

richh said:

Chord Chemistry, by Ted Greene?

Terrible book for learning theory.

It is basically a dictionary of chords- it tells you very little about how to use them.

Agreed, this one of Ted's book is all about getting the fingers and ears working, there's not a great deal of why in it... nor need there be, BUT a book to learn guitar specific theory is a bit odd.

Music is written on staves spaced a 3rd apart, the guitar is tuned in 4ths (except for one major 3rd) it's tuned that way for re-entrant chords. The range of  the guitar is around 3 octaves - lots of repeated notes. Mile Davis had about two octaves.

I'd suggest one of the Guthrie Govan books, they're pretty good although it's been a while since I read I can't remember which one is your basic grounding ... 1 I suppose.