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Guitar Books – Three Music Theory Books For Guitarists
By Mike Hayes | March 31, 2010
Sooner or later any serious guitarist comes to realize that a
solid theoretical background is the only way forward. Your ear
can only take you so far, that’s when your musical theory can
kick in and remove any musical obstacles in your way to fully
expressing yourself.
Seems pretty straight forward … just go to the music shop and
pick up a theory book and away we go; away we go alright … pick
up the wrong book and you’ll end up more confused than you ever
were before.
Musical fact of life # 1: Not all theory books are created equal.
I remember when I started my first job, it was at a music store
teaching music; I had a bit of a reputation as a player in the
local area playing in dance bands etc., and since I had already
sold quite a bit of musical equipment for the music store based
on my track record they thought I would be the obvious choice; if
the store had a potential guitar or amp customer they would leave
a message with my mum, then after school I would go down to the
store and demonstrate the gear.
Everything started out fine, I stumbled and fumbled my way
through the guitar lessons, I’m not sure who learnt the most me
or my students I know I learnt heaps everyday mostly about how
not to teach.
Anyway, very early in the piece the store manager informed me
that if I was going to continue teaching for the store I would
need to be “qualified”; I didn’t know exactly what that entailed
but it did sound scary
As it turned out what he meant was I needed to be formally
qualified … just being able to play the guitar was not good
enough if I was going to teach guitar for them.
The good news was they were going to pay for my lessons so that
was neat … there was even more good news I could go to the
theory lessons instead of having to work at the shop.
So I began my theory lessons and very soon became frustrated,
confused and perplexed … things I knew worked on the bandstand
the night before didn’t match up with the theory lesson the next
day.
The more confused I became the more determined I was about
finding the “truth”; so I started studying with other teachers to
augment my “paid” lessons from the music store … boy, did that
make matters worst; it seemed as if each theory teacher had their
own slant on things many basic concepts did not match up.
Long story short … after a lot of playing, thinking and
research I discovered ….
Musical fact of life # 2: there are different types of theory …
in fact there are three distinct types of theory: classical,
jazz and rock/blues!
These are very broad categories they are all important and the
complete musician needs to be aware of their similarities and
differences.
They world is full of traditional classical theory books so I
won’t discuss them here. Modern theory as applied to
improvisation and the music of our time is what I’m about …
it’s great to know what happened 400 years ago but it’s unlikely
to help you secure that rock gig next Friday night,
Here’s my top three modern theory books for guitarists
Title: Modern Method For Guitar – By William Leavitt (Berklee
Press)
Available from: Berklee.com
Overview: if you want to get in on the ground floor and study
guitar and theory as applied to the guitar fretboard, this is the
place to start!
Available in three volumes; the first sixty pages of volume one
covers the basics of reading music in the first position of the
guitar.
Part two of Berklee volume one introduces the five standard
fingering patterns for reading music over the fretboard.
Title: Jazz Studies – by Bruce Clarke (ed clinch v.i.s.e text)
Available from: BillyHydemusic.com.au
A fantastic book that takes off were the Berklee book volume one
finishes; the Jazz Studies book is ideal to use in conjunction
with Berklee Volume two.
Fantastic explanations of how modes, cycle 5 and cycle 7 concepts
work Jazz studies is a great introduction into the world of
improvisation, if you have studied traditional theory this book
will “blow the lid off” how you look at theory. Step by step
instruction, very easy to understand. Highly recommended.
Title: “See It – Hear It / Hear It – Play It” – by Dick Grove
Available from: DickGrove.com
A complete course with DVD/text instruction from the man himself
Dick Grove, you could easily pay $100,000 in college instruction
and never get this type of tuition.
Everyone learns differently the DVD’s bring the written text to
life helping to maintain the student’s motivation and enthusiasm.
Any one of these courses or combination of these three theory
text will clear the way for you to express yourself on the
guitar.
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