Product Description

A guitar player's guide to music theory. This book is a complete theory course with recorded examples that put everything in an applicable, musical context. The recording includes all the musical examples and play-along tracks.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #474619 in Books
• Published on: 1993-10-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 160 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780898986921
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From the Publisher
A guitar player's guide to music theory. This book is a complete theory course with recorded examples that put everything in an applicable, musical context. The recording includes all the musical examples and play-along tracks.

Customer Reviews

Don Latarski Has Out Done Himself
The best and easiest to comprehend book that I have ever seen on the subject of Musc Theory, Scales, Modes, and Composition. The accompaning CD is wonderful as well, and gives so many great examples, that the reader will find him or herself wanting to spend hours learning, and playing along with them. This is something that is not often seen of books on this subject matter.

Barvo!!!!

Marginally Practical
Ok I'll start with the pros:

-I like the feel of the chords on the example tracks.
-I like the fact that the intervals are shown on the
scale/mode fingerings.
-Overall the guitar neck is broken down extensively and
the information provided is enough to open a floodgate of
possibilities.

Now for the cons:

-they are all 2 chord examples and you only have 30 seconds to
play over them (hardly enough time to experiment with a new scale/mode you've just learned).
-The amount of exercises does not even come close to compensating for the amount of information provided. If you use only this book to learn the information, you will be playing over the same sections far beyond the stretch of boredom.
-like many theory books, it just throws a bunch of fingerings at you and says 'here play them' without really giving you a practical method of getting comfortable with them.

That's my 2 cents. Overall the layout and concepts are pretty good. If you are self motivated and apply yourself to this information, you could really get a lot out of it.

Excellent book... but not for beginners
This is an excellent book, but be forewarned it is not for beginners. You should have a firm grasp on basic scale theory, keys, and chords before tackling this book. Also, this is not a book that teaches you exercises on learning the scales. If you don't already have the major scale down in multiple positions and all keys, this is not the book for you. A better choice might be Tom Kolb's book on music theory. Also, as someone mentioned, this is not a how-to book with exercises.

If you at least have the major scale down in all positions and keys, this is a great reference to get you going on all the modes, plus a bunch of other scales... and more!

I found it to be primarily a solid intermediate text/reference book on scales, chords, and music theory. Each of the 7 modes of the major scale (plus a bunch of other scales) is explained ... not just a fingering pattern (yes, those are there too)... but the intervals are explained as well as which chord's fit the scale. I found the writing is concise and clear.

Towards the end, there is a good section on chords and harmonizing in various scales. I found this book to be a perfect fit with my current guitar instructor and use it as a reference with my weekly lessons.

If you are 'self teaching', you will need to be disciplined to take the material and come up with the proper exercises to learn it. Again, that is not shown in the book.