Hi Chaps,
I'm in the process of writing a book, well it's actually more of an exercise in collating all of my music theory lessons into one volume. The working title I've got for it is "A Guitarist's Guide To Music Theory". It's up to around 30,000 words so far and comes with (at the moment) over 50 mp3 demonstrations & backing tracks to illustrate the examples I use. So far, it covers:
The Derivation of The 12-note Scale we base all our music on
The Major Scale and it's Modes
The Pentatonic Scale & it's uses
Chords - how to understand the language of chords: basically how to look at the name of a chord & know where to put your fingers on the guitar.
Harmony - how to create everything from Thin Lizzy style guitar parts to Beach Boys style vocals
The Blues
How Chord Progressions work - what makes a good chord sequence, basically
And the current chapter I'm working on: How melodies work.
The two chapters I've got left to do after this one are:
Reading music notation, and
"Odd/Unusual" scales found in jazz & elsewhere.
It's about two-thirds finished at the moment and if anyone is curious about getting into a bit of theory based learning, I'd be delighted to let you see it in return for some feedback. PM me if you're interested & I'll send you the download link for the PDF and mp3s.
Cheers,
John.
best of luck Johnny.
Bert Weedon's Play in a Day was too complicated for me, so i won't volunteer. ;D ;D ;D ;D
I've sent you an email John cheers
That sounds immensely cool my brother, but it also sounds like practice. I'm not huge on practice which is why I'm kind of what I think of as a half-assed musician but I sure wouldn't mind looking through your stuff. Can guarantee much feedback other than I don't practice. It's rock in them that you put this together and that you almost have it done.
Rock on!
Thanks for the interest, chaps :)
Here's the dropbox link for the PDF & mp3s:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ljegq475ys4d5b6/AAAFdKA0xYkuc9bViPqoeYOda?dl=0 (https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ljegq475ys4d5b6/AAAFdKA0xYkuc9bViPqoeYOda?dl=0)
Hi John
Just a quick update - I'm working my way through the download - I'll get back to you with some feedback when I've finished and got my thoughts together.
Pete
Thanks Pete. Your time is much appreciated :)
Hi John, firstly, thank you for all your fabulous music and encouragement and secondly, I have to say that I'm a fly by the seat of my pants guitarist and would be of little use in an experiment such as this. Also, we are waiting to be grandparents for the first time (any day now) and as a consequence I have only just enough time to play a little bit which to me is an absolute necessity, I guess you're the same.
Good luck with your projects, I'm sure you will get some useful feedback from some of the guys on site. Willie
Hey Johnny - looks interesting. Have only skimmed it briefly, it appears to be a nice easy read, to present in the 'language' that guitarists will understand. It depends on time, but will take a deeper look - quite happy to provide comment/feedback as I go. How'd would you like comments - can add to this thread as and when, or can PM you with comments as I go???
B
Quote from: Willie on April 24, 2016, 05:24:22 AMHi John, firstly, thank you for all your fabulous music and encouragement and secondly, I have to say that I'm a fly by the seat of my pants guitarist and would be of little use in an experiment such as this. Also, we are waiting to be grandparents for the first time (any day now) and as a consequence I have only just enough time to play a little bit which to me is an absolute necessity, I guess you're the same.
Good luck with your projects, I'm sure you will get some useful feedback from some of the guys on site. Willie
Thanks Willie. Congratulations on the impending new arrival :)
Quote from: bruno on April 24, 2016, 05:55:39 AMHey Johnny - looks interesting. Have only skimmed it briefly, it appears to be a nice easy read, to present in the 'language' that guitarists will understand. It depends on time, but will take a deeper look - quite happy to provide comment/feedback as I go. How'd would you like comments - can add to this thread as and when, or can PM you with comments as I go???
B
Thanks Bruno! Probably best if you just PM me, mate. Glad you like the look of it so far... my intention is to make the topic as accessible as possible, so it's gratifying to know I appear to be hitting the mark :)
John,
That sounds like a great project you are embarking on. I wish you all the best with it and am sure its gonna be a great help to folks.
I am also a bit of a wing and a prayer guitar player and I normally have a big problem understanding / taking tuition at the best of times, not sure why but i think i must have some kind of attention span deficiency when it comes to certain things and music theory is one of those unfortunately.
Having said all this if i do find time someday and decide to try and explore music theory a little i will give it a go.
I am only grateful for a website like this that entertains my fiddling about with guitars and music and permits me to be heard alongside people with real talent.
Best of luck with this John
Mike
I got in touch with Johnny and downloaded a copy of his Guitarist's Guide to Music Theory. Below is a copy of my own thoughts on his project which he's happy for me to share with you all. I'd encourage you all to contact Johnny for a copy - whatever level you feel you've reached as a guitarist, I'm sure that you'll find something there to help you. It's a well set-out guide which doesn't take too much of your time to read through.
Hi John
Thanks for the download which I've now read through and I'm ready to give you some feedback.
To give you a background of my knowledge in music, before choosing which O levels to take at school, I had music lessons once a week for 2 years between the age of 11 to 12. I remember this covered scales, intervals and so on but everything went straight over my head. Apart from the recorder, which I couldn't get to grips with, we never had the opportunity to try any other instruments. However, as a young teenager I set my heart on being a guitarist and got my first accoustic guitar for my 14th birthday, I think. This co-incided with a Saturday morning TV show called Play Guitar by Ulf Goran, and I bought the book to accompany the TV series. I learned the basics from watching this and from another couple of beginner's books. I even taught myself to read music at the time, although I've since forgotten how to ! I spent the next few years trying to play along to my favourite music, punk came along, and I got my first electric guitar at 18 and started a band with some friends. We never got anywhere as, to be honest, we were appalling, but we got together every Sunday afternoon for about 3 years for a rehearsal.
After the band fell apart, I just used to play along to records at home and gradually improved a little purely by playing by ear as I knew all the basic chords- majors, minors, 7ths. Solos and twiddly bits were worked out by ear if possible, and I had no knowledge of even the pentatonic scale. In my 30's, I started playing again with some friends as a hobby and we did a few gigs here and there at charity events, family celebrations and the odd pub. As being in a band again re-awakened my interest in learning more, I started to buy magazines like Guitarist and Total Guitar and found out that tablature existed, which was much easier than trying to read music. As well as improving technique, it also gave me a better understanding of guitars, amps and effects. Then the internet came along which made it much easier to find the chords for a song and find tuition videos. I even played with a semi-pro band
for a year.
As you said in the guide, the magazine and video tuition often re-confirmed what I was often doing already and had just learned by chance.
Its a few years now since I've played in a band so Songcrafters is my way of keeping my hand in and I think home-recording has helped me maintain the level of playing I had reached in my band days and has encouraged me to still learn a little and try to improve as I would only class myself as an average-ish guitarist. Its only because of Songcrafters that I've learned a few basic keyboard chords and started to play bass guitar which I'd never done before.
Back to your Guitarist's Guide - it's difficult after playing guitar for 40 years with so little technical knowledge of what I'm actually doing to start to analyse the theory of what I'm doing. However, what I would say is that if I was starting to learn guitar now, and was filled with enthusiasm, the guide would be a valuable aid and I'd be reading through it again and again till I fully understood it. (You're a vaper John - when I started to try e-cigarettes nearly 5 years ago, I was so enthusiastic that I watched every video I could find, bought all the latest gear as it came out, learned how to build my own coils and finally understood Ohm's law which is relevant for variable voltage/wattage devices.) If I was just discovering the guitar I'd have that same keeness to learn as much as I could - information was limited back in the 1970's.
Reading the guide, some of the topics started to make some sense at last and I'll be keeping my download as a reference as I realise I should really spend some time on learning the pentatonic positions at the very least as I only know the basic ones. I also need to learn the fretboard a bit more as I still can't name every fret without having to work out what the note is by counting up from the notes I do know !
In summary, the Guide covers stuff I should have learned 40 years ago and its a bit late, being set in my ways, to go right back to basics and re-learn. However, I would certainly recommend the Guide to a new(er) player as from my own experience, the musicians I have worked with who do know the theory, were better musicians as a result. As I said, I'll certainly be keeping hold of my copy of the Guide as a reference to revisit the sections that will help me.
I'm certainly interested in reading the remaining sections too when you've finished them.
Regards
Pete