Guitar Books: Three Music Theory Books for Guitarists

Sooner or later, any serious guitarist realizes that a solid theoretical background is the only way to go. Your ear can only take you so far, that’s when your music theory can kick in and remove any musical obstacles in your way to fully express yourself.

It seems pretty straightforward … just go to the music store and buy a theory book and we’re off; we’re doing fine … grab the wrong book and you’ll end up more confused than ever.

Musical fact of life # 1: Not all theory books are the same.

I remember when I started my first job, it was in 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 as I had already sold quite a bit of music equipment for the music store based on my track record they thought it would be the obvious choice. ; yew
The store had a potential guitar or amp customer who would leave a message for my mother, then after school I would go to the store and show her the equipment.

It all started well, I stumbled and worked my way through the guitar lessons, not sure who learns more, me or my students. I know I learned loads every day about everything about how not to teach.

Anyway, very early in the article, the store manager informed me that if I was going to continue teaching in the store I would have to be “qualified”; He didn’t know exactly what that entailed, but it sounded terrifying.

As it turned out, what he meant was that he needed to be formally qualified … just being able to play guitar wasn’t good enough if he was going to teach them guitar.

The good news was that they were going to pay for my lessons, so that was fine … there was even more good news that I could go to the theory lessons instead of having to work in the workshop.

So I started my theory lessons and very soon I was frustrated, confused and perplexed … the things I knew worked on the bandstand the night before did not coincide with the theory lesson the next day.

The more confused he was, the more determined he was to find the “truth”; so I started studying with other teachers to increase my “paid” lessons from the music store … boy, did that make things worse; It seemed as if each theory teacher had their own penchant for things that many basic concepts did not match.

In short … after a lot of playing, thinking and researching, I discovered …

Musical fact of life # 2: There are different types of theory … in fact, there are three different types of theory: classical, jazz, and rock / blues!

These are very broad categories, they are all important, and the entire musician must be aware of their similarities and differences.

The world is full of traditional classical theory books, so I will not discuss them here. Modern theory applied to improvisation and the music of our time is what it’s all about … it’s great to know what happened 400 years ago, but unlikely to help you land that rock concert next Friday night. night.

Here are my top three books on modern theory for guitarists.

Qualification: Modern method for guitar – By William Leavitt (Berklee Press)

Available from: Berklee.com

General description: If you want to get into the ground floor and study guitar and guitar fretboard theory, this is the place to start!

Available in three volumes; The first sixty pages of volume one cover the basics of reading music in first position on the guitar.

The second part of volume one by Berklee introduces the five standard fingering patterns for reading music on the fretboard.

Qualification: Jazz Studies – by Bruce Clarke (ed clinch aim text)

Available from: BillyHydemusic.com.au

General description:A fantastic book that takes off when volume one of the Berklee book ends; the Jazz Studies book is ideal to use in conjunction with volume two of Berklee.

Great explanations of how the concepts of modes, cycle 5 and cycle 7 work Jazz studies are a great introduction to the world of improvisation. If you’ve studied traditional theory, this book will “blow the lid off” on what theory looks like. Step-by-step instruction, very easy to understand. Highly recommended.

Qualification: “Look at it – Listen to it / Listen to it – Touch it” – by Dick Grove

Available from: DickGrove.com

General description:A full course with DVD / text instruction from Dick Grove himself, you could easily pay $ 100,000 in college instruction and never earn this type of tuition.

Everyone learns differently, DVDs bring written text to life and help maintain student motivation and enthusiasm. Any of these individual courses or the combination of the three theory texts will clear the way for you to express yourself on the guitar.