(Part 2) Reddit mentions: The best books about musical instruments

I agree with the Vic Firth site. Also, after a few weeks of practice or so, get the rudiment you are practicing up to the fastest you can go, with maybe a little sloppiness. Practice at this level for a bit, and think of it as exercise to make you faster. There should be a little burn, and you'll be able to play slightly faster at the same level of control next time you practice. Then, dial it back to the fastest you can play while still remaining in complete control, and practice at this level the most. This is where control and good muscle memory will be built. (EDIT: But if you happen to find yourself getting sloppy at that speed, do not hesitate to slow it down further if you have to. Make sure you're doing every movement correctly and mindfully. When it's perfect at a slow tempo, then you can start taking it up a couple notches at a time until you're able to play it perfectly at a fast tempo. Remember to stay within your limits and watch your form for the most part, but there is benefit to be found in pushing those limits a bit in order to -gradually!!- get faster, as long as you aren't spending all your practice time in a sloppy speed-fest.) You will find that both your control and your speed will improve with each practice session, as long as you are properly applying yourself.

In terms of method books for this sort of thing, I would recommend Edward Freytag's The Rudimental Cookbook and Just Desserts. Both of these books start out simple and the solos get more complex and challenging as you progress, allowing you to expand your vocabulary and abilities along the way. Plus the solos are fun and oh-so-tasty. After a few months of proper practice, you could go from the simple stuff at the beginning to shredding through the crazy stuff at the end. It'll looks scary and intimidating, but once you've played your way through the book, reading even the most advanced solos will become a cinch and playing them will be pure enjoyment.

I would also recommend Scott Johnson's Progressions because, like the others, it starts out easy and the solos get more challenging as the book goes on. The idea is that you start out as a beginner and progress (geddit?) up to the level of a competent, DCI-quality player. And Scott Johnson definitely knows the skill drummers need to succeed at a DCI level.

Oh yeah I almost forgot Bill Bachman's Rudimental Logic. This book has like a zillion exercises, so it can be overwhelming, but it is still a great place to woodshed a rudiment and it actually shows you how to play the rudiment by breaking down the individual strokes involved, rather than just giving you exercises and telling you to "get to it". It shows you a bunch of hybrids as well as the standard 40 rudiments, and is supremely useful for introducing to your system of practice the concept of "the grid", which is itself a supremely useful practice tool for stick control and rudimental proficiency.

I would also recommend starting to youtube various drum corps to find exercises and pieces that interest you. That way you have something fun to work towards. I started with this video of the Concord Blue Devils playing The Ditty. This is what got me hooked. I had no idea that level of coordination and precision was possible. I thought there was no way I would ever be able to play that. However, after only a few months of practice, I was astonished to find out that I could. It's immensely rewarding. Plus, when you get these rams and such up to the proper level, you can play along with the youtube video of the drum corp playing it, which is really fun. The sheet music for most of the exercises you'll see is available from the specific corps for purchase, but if you can't find it or are poor, there are usually a bunch of transcriptions floating around the interwebs for your edification.

A few years ago, I purchased the Santa Clara Vanguard audition packet. I never auditioned, unfortunately, because real life and financial realities got in the way, but it was still one of my best purchases which I still use even today. It even comes with a DVD explaining the exercises (Progressions also has an immensely useful DVD and the Freytag books have an audio CD which is really useful to figure out tricky phrasing and rhythms). Anyway, the exercises in the audition packet are essentially what you need to have down pat in order to make it into whichever corps for which you're hypothetically auditioning, so they are incredibly good for you. Again, most of these exercises can be found in "in the lot" youtube videos, so once you have it memorized and down cold, you can play along with the videos, both for fun and to make sure you can play up to the appropriate tempo, while listening to the rest of the drumline.

I would also highly recommend Jim Chapin's classic Advanced Techniques for the Modern Drummer. This is a drumset method book, not a rudimental one, and it teaches you the "coordinated independence" necessary for jazz and bop playing. Once you get through this book, you will not only be a competent player in the jazz style, one of the trickiest idioms to learn and master, but your abilities on drumset across the board will increase dramatically. This book will give you the ability to play different, independent rhythms on each hand and foot, both separately and coordinated, and this ability will shine through, no matter which style you're playing. Being able to play with independence is one of the trickiest and most beneficial things to learn, from complicated polyrhythms on double bass to just getting that hi-hat chick on the two and four while your hands and other foot are doing different things.

It's like learning a basic drum beat. Many people tell me they can't even learn a basic beat because they can't do that many things at once. I tell them that the hi-hat pattern is just eighth notes, so just lay that down and forget about it, then you can focus on the rest of your limbs. Later, once you have that down, you can start varying up your hi-hat patterns. Same thing with the left foot in jazz. At first it may seem ridiculously difficult to keep the same pattern with the left foot while your other limbs are going all over the place, but eventually you can just do it without thinking about it, freeing up your brain to focus on your other limbs. Then you can also control and change up the pattern as your creative instincts dictate.

Anyway, I would really highly recommend any of these books. I went from someone with no rudimental chops and absolutely zero jazz vocabulary to someone with, at the very least, fairly good control and a decent vocabulary. The jazz part is especially great because I had no idea how to play jazz and really struggled until I found the Chapin book. Again, even if you don't play jazz, it is a tremendously useful thing to learn, and one of the trickiest. It's really, really useful. Trust me.

Also I just dug up a comment I made a month ago on the question "What rudiment(s) helped you progress most?" where I had a few ideas for stick control exercises and such. It's also really long, but I hope it's useful.

At any rate, I have a ton of useful exercises and tricks I use, some of which I even made up myself. If you're ever looking for ideas, feel free to message me. Hope this helps.


EDIT: Also, just as an aside, learn triple-stroke rolls. I didn't even know these were a thing until like five years after I'd started playing. Hell, I didn't even really know the difference between a crush roll and a double-stroke roll until way later than I should have. But triple strokes provide you with so much more opportunity to creatively vary up your playing and practicing. I would also recommend learning quadruple strokes, although I ended up learning those because a piece I was currently working on had them, so I was "forced" to learn them in order to play the piece. This also brings up the significance of what I said earlier about finding youtube videos and exercises and such that seem fun and that you want to learn. These exercises will contain rudiments and sticking patterns that you are unfamiliar with. While you might shy away from tricky things like this during regular practice, you are "forced" to learn them if you want to be able to play this fun piece, thus expanding your vocabulary further, so that the next time you see that rudiment or whatever in a different piece of music, you've already played it 10,000 times, and you can just sight read it and get to learning the things you haven't seen before.

EDIT 2: Also, 32nd notes seemed really scary to me until I figured out that they were just 16ths, but twice as fast. Fivelets and septuplets also seemed really intimidating at first, but once you start playing your way through them, you learn to feel them and eventually you'll be able to play them without even thinking about it. My point here is: Don't avoid something just because it appears scary. Dive right in and vanquish the beast with your sword of justice. It will be a bloodbath at first, but i guarantee that if you keep practicing it will eventually become second nature. If you avoid it, you'll never learn it, and it's remarkable how the things that seemed impossible a few months ago quickly become so easy, so practiced, so natural that you can do them at will, without effort. Muscle memory is the incredible gift from the gods to our nervous system, and it is a sublimely powerful tool. It would be a massive shame to let something of such awesome potential simply go to waste.

It seems to me that most people are very poor judges of what is too easy. I think most people would benefit from going much easier than they think they should. It just tends to hurt their ego and so they instead spend a ton of time on one really hard thing.

The thing is, in the same amount of time you could spend working on one really hard piece, you could've probably worked on a dozen or more simpler pieces. Those pieces might not be as individually challenging, but each probably has something that challenges you a little. And it likely exposes you to a much greater variety of challenges. More rhythms, more keys, more variety period. That is going to lead to much more lasting improvement than spending a month or more on a single piece of really hard music.

The accumulation of skill will eventually make harder music easier to learn. I always say if you can't sightread it flawlessly and effortlessly with good musicality, there is something to be learned from polishing it up. That might take a few days, or it might only take 30 minutes of practice, but it's infinitely more worth your time than throwing yourself inaccurately are very difficult music and hoping to get it right.

The thing is, it doesn't feel like you're making progress because you're making huge strides. And the better you get, the more incremental your improvement will be. It takes more and more small incremental improvement to even notice you've gotten better and at some point it's basically almost impossible to notice unless you record yourself and then look back in 6 months, or maybe read something difficult and then come back to it 6 months later to see how much easier it is. Early on you are making big leaps, but it just can't continue.


It's like an RPG

Honestly, it's a lot like an RPG. You want to gain a lot of XP, so you go fight the hardest monster possible that gives 500 XP. But your party wipes... over and over... for an hour. In that same hour you could've beaten dozens of monsters that only gave 50 XP. in that same amount of time you could've gotten 3 or 4 times as much XP if you hadn't wasted your time wiping to the really hard enemy. And now that 500 XP enemy is laughably easy because you've leveled up so much. It's just that 50 XP a pop doesn't feel as good even though it's much more efficient.

And likewise, the higher level you get in most RPGs, the longer it takes to level up. Early on you'd be leveling up every 10-30 minutes, but in the end, you're only leveling up every few hours.

Finding music

This one is going to be hard depending on your goals. It seems many people only want to play music that is very personally fun to them, but that's not always the most efficient path. It's an issue if you want to get better or if you want instant (but often frustrating) gratification. It's honestly very worth it to spend some time suffering through less fun stuff and building up the skills that will eventually let you just pick up a piece of music and quickly read it or learn it in a few days. So you have to decide if you want to play something you love right now but it takes you 1-3 months every time you want to learn something new...or if you to be able to constantly pick up music you like and learn stuff you enjoy within a week or days.

The additional benefit is that once you get to that point, you'll actually accelerate your learning because you'll be able to play so much more music that you'll just exponentially increase your exposure. It will still feel slow, but you'll actually be improving a lot more.

So if you want to actually work on improving, just find anything. Don't go looking for the perfect piece at the perfect level. Just go grab tons of stuff erring on the side of offensively simple and just learn a ton of it. I like to grab song books from used book stores to use as reading/learning material. It's very cheap and I get a ton of material. Once again, if I can't sightread it, it's probably worth practicing.

You could also get various method books and work through them. Can you read everything in all 3 levels of the Alfred adult books? You could get all sorts of graduated collections of works like this series and just work through them. You could get First Lessons in Bach. Just find, learn, and read tons of material. Err on the side of short and simple.

EDIT: I'll also add that only working on overly difficult music often leads to an increased risk of developing lots of bad habits and playing with lots of tension.

Ok, everything here is to be taken with a grain of salt. Not because any of it will be wrong, just because there's no "The One Right Way" to do things.

Rhythm Section:

How to manage it?

Listen to as much big band music as you can. Listen to what the rhythm section is doing and how it fits with the rest of the band. I'll get into some specifics in a bit.

What is the usual set up?

Piano, Guitar, Bass and Keys. Actual positioning? Ideally I would put it with the drums to the right of the 2nd Bone, at about a 45 degree angle. Bass close behind the drums, more in line with the trumpets. Piano in front of the drums facing 90 degrees from the rest of the band and guitar wedged in front between keys and drums. You may not be in an ideal space for this set up. Adapt. With the rhythm section the most important thing is that the drummer and bass player can hear each other. Make sure the bass player's amp is behind the drummer (nobody has trouble hearing the drums).

With a second drummer put them on vibes*. Your students (if they play latin perc.) aren't mature enough to create an interesting and appropriate part that challenges them and sounds good. Most kids playing latin percussion are just playing repetitive rhythms to keep them occupied. Help them learn something. They can double the piano part at least.

Some considerations for each instrument individually:

Piano

• Provides harmony for the group.
  
  
• Usually has a terrible part written for it, especially middle school. Consider writing your own, or doing it with the student. Voicings for Jazz Keyboard by Frank Mantooth is a great resource for how to get the right sound.
  
  
• When comping should alternate and mix up being on the beat, eighth behind the beat, and eighth ahead of the beat.
  
  Bass:
  
  
• Responsible for time. People think the drummer is in charge but he aint.
  
  
• In public schools they'll usually be playing electric. Try to get an upright sound. Turn the instrument down and the amp up. Play with the settings yourself, don't let your student fiddle with them.
  
  
• Sometimes parts are crap, most times they're an ok walking bass line. Even if the part is written perfectly, you'll be doing the greatest service to your student by teaching them to improvise a walking bass line. Here are some handy rules for what a bass line should be.
  
  

1. Play the root on beat 1.
   
   
2. Play a leading tone on beat 4.
   
   
3. Beats 2 and 3 can be scale or chord tones but they need to be right for the chord.
   
   
4. Play notes as long as possible and perfectly in time.
   
   
5. Alternate going up and down and occasionally leap up or down.
   
   Drums:
   
   

• Ride on every beat, Hi hat on 2 and 4. I've been told by different people that feathering the bass drum on each beat is both super important and completely unnecessary. It's probably too much for a middle school student to concentrate on stomping the hi hat and playing bass drum super light on the same beat. *"Extra" ride parts should be improvised and not that constant ting ting ta-ting repeated forever.**
  
  
• Fills should be improvised. Have students practicing filling toward a specific beat. Have a fill ready for every one (On 1, and of 1, on 2, and of 2 ect.)
  
  
• Control dynamics for the band. If they don't get loud and soft, the horns won't either, and even if they did, nobody would notice.
  
  Guitar:
  
  Doesn't really matter in big bands unless playing funk tunes. Serves mostly as a soloist. Guitarists should try to add in some voices not already in the piano. They shouldn't play more than 4 notes at a time and they should play on every beat. Freddie Green.
  
  Ok, onto improvisation:
  
  There are a million and one ways to teach present improvisation, but everyone learns to do it on their own. I wouldn't use the blues scale but I can see the appeal. It does give students some success and confidence, but it doesn't really teach you how to play changes. People use it because it limits the choice of notes and lets the student concentrate on rhythm and style. I'd get simple changes and give the students a couple notes for each chord. 7, 1, 9, 3 would be fairly easy to apply, to have the whole group play together and still be limiting. The only way to get good at it is to practice.
  
  Additional thoughts:
  
  Please find quality charts and don't play fucking Mission Impossible and Don't Stop Believing.
  
  denotes opinion, not fact.

One important thing is to relax, and especially relax your fretting hand. If you've got the strings in a death claw, it's going to sound bad and you might eventually wind up with carpal tunnel.

Instead of trying to do hammer-ons right away, force yourself to go back to fundamentals. Set the metronome (you must have a metronome) to 40 beats per minute and play one finger per fret. Your fingers should fall immediately behind each fret. Whole notes, half notes, quarters, eighths triplets and 16ths...make sure you're playing in time with the clicks. Try to relax completely and use only the minimum amount of pressure it takes to sound each note without buzzing. The idea behind this exercise is to teach your muscle memory the exact amount of pressure you need to play a given note. Forcing yourself to play slow will give your muscles time to readjust in order to sound the notes accurately. Your fingers, wrists, body posture, etc. should be completely relaxed and comfortable throughout. If you start tensing up or feel pain or burning in your fingers, make yourself relax and loosen up.

Couple other popular hand exercises.

1. The Soft Touch. Play exactly as above, only leave your fingers on the frets until each finger is ready to move up to the next string. Example: you play index A on the E string, middle finger A#, ring finger B, pinkie B#, keeping each finger in fret position. Now leaving your mf, ring and pinkie down on those frets, pick up your index and move it to D on the A string. Then pick up your mf and move it to play D#, ring to E, pinkie to F and hold. Then continue up the D and G strings the same way. It might help to start higher up on the neck, like C on the E string. Throughout this exercise, the most important thing is that you relax your hand. There should be no pain, no strain, no bizarre wrist angles. Just smooth, slow, relaxed and locked in to the 40 bpm pulse.
   
   
2. The Spider. Purpose of this exercise is to learn independent control of index/ring fingers and middle/pinkie fingers. Play A on the E string with your index, then E on the A string with your ring finger. Then A# on the E with your middle, followed by F on the A string with your pinkie. Then switch up and hit B on the E string with your ring finger, followed by D on the A string with your index, then B# on the E with the pinkie and D# on the A with the middle. Alternating 1-3, 2-4 fingers the whole time. Practice that until it's comfortable (could take a few days), then play the same pattern skipping up to the D string, and finally all the way to the G string. The full spider pattern is played E string to A string, then E string to D string, then E string to G string, then back down E to D, finally back to E to A.
   
   For books, there's a big difference between a good one and a bad one. I can personally recommend Serious Electric Bass, Bass Logic, Bass Grooves, and Standing in the Shadows of Motown (this last book is less of a beginner's guide and more of a project you could spend a lifetime on: i.e. learning from the great James Jamerson). Also highly recommended is Ed Friedland's Building Walking Bass Lines. I also have and recommend The Bass Grimoire, but it is more a reference book for advanced scale and chord building, as opposed to a beginner's guide. Bass Guitar for Dummies is actually pretty good and comprehensive.
   
   And there are some good online resources as well: studybass.com is great and starts from a beginner level. Scott Devine is an amazing teacher especially with more advanced techniques, but also for fundamentals. Paul from How To Play Bass Dot Com just steps you through a bunch of popular rock & r&b tunes...not bad for picking up new songs, but it's far better to learn the theory & structure behind a song than just memorizing the finger patterns. MarloweDK is a great player with hundreds of videos, but he's highly advanced.
   
   Finally, musictheory.net has some great ear training exercises you can do any time, in addition to a wealth of info about basic theory that applies to all instruments.

I'm not too familiar with Handel's works, but progressing through Baroque music can be fairly straightforward and programmatic. This is especially true when it comes to Bach, who happens to be excellent for developing hand independence! I would recommend going starting with this book, then his Little Preludes, then his two- and three-part inventions, and then WTC I and II. The progression in difficulty isn't completely linear, as you'll find there will be a couple of pieces here and there (like the WTC I Prelude in C you learned) that are easier than the pieces from the book before. For the most part though, the pieces do get progressively harder. You probably won't find a lot of hand independence exercises until you get to the inventions, but there's plenty of great material to start with from the first two books alone that will prepare you. The inventions require you to voice multiple independent melodies, which can be pretty difficult for any beginner pianist.

I also agree with the other poster, keep practicing your scales! There's a lot of different ways to improve your technique from playing scales alone. Learn all your major and harmonic/melodic minor scales. Learn to play them across multiple octaves, in parallel and contrary motion, starting from any key, in thirds, sixths, and tenths. Mix them up and play different scales in each hand at the same time. Play one scale in one hand at half the speed of the other hand. Play them at different dynamics, play them legato/staccato. The variety of ways you can improve your technique from just scales is staggering, not to mention it will be of immense benefit for improving your music theory and will help you run through scales much more quickly when you encounter them in a piece later on :)

A few things that have helped me with my songwriting that might also help you:

• If you come up with something that even sounds vaguely mediocre, record it! You might come up with something that at the time doesn't sound special, only later to listen to your recording and really dig it. don't let good ideas get away.
  
  
• come up with 3-4 chords to write the rest of the song around. You can use more chords, but 4 chords is a good start. I'd highly suggest looking a a key chart (included in link below) to see what chords fit in the key of your song. With some creativity you can chords outside the key, but a key/chord chart is an excellent starting point for coming up with chord progressions.
  
  https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/5f/d3/ff/5fd3ffb8940285beca8a39c744fad7d4.jpg
  
  
  
• Learn to play some of your favorite songs so you can see the behind the scenes music structure. You can learn a lot about chord progressions, song structures, successful key changes, and use of riffs by learning from famous songs.
  
  
• I find it easier to write lyrics after you've already come up with a vocal melody. Just hum some gibberish until you have a melody that sounds good. Once you have a strong melody, just let it bounce around in your head and see if any words start to stick to it. Write down whatever comes to you, whether you think its good or not. I'd also say don't set out to write to write a song about a specific subject matter, let the song decide what its about.
  
  
• There is one songwriting book that I absolutely recommend, Rikky Rooksby's How to Write Songs on Guitar. I bought that book 9 years ago and to this day still refer to it from time to time. It is backed with incredibly helpful information. Rooksby's other books Songwriting Sourcebook, Chord Master (the absolute best chord book IMO) are also incredibly helpful for songwriting.
  
  https://www.amazon.com/How-Write-Songs-Guitar-Expanded/dp/0879309423/ref=la_B001K87RIO_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1502982573&sr=1-1
  
  
• If you want to improve your lyrics, listen to Bob Dylan. IMO he is the best lyricist in music and you will get better at writing lyrics just through osmosis.
  

Note: All the books I recommend are expensive and I suggest you torrent them before buying them to make sure you like their style. Then if you decide to use them buy them of course. The vocabulary used in the book can be a real bitch too, but if you stick with it and google the words you don't know, it'll be worth it.

I've self studied classical and pop music, even composed a few rondos and sonatas in my time. The easiest book you can read is Harmony for Computer Musician http://www.amazon.ca/Harmony-Computer-Musicians-Michael-Hewitt/dp/1435456726

It explains everything in piano roll. It's one of the first book I read and the only thing I didn't like about it is that it left me with so many unanswered questions. It will teach you how to form and use all chords.

It takes probably about 20 hours to go through the book with no prior knowledge. I don't recommend this book unless the only time you want to invest is 20 hours. Knowing only 50% of theory can really restrict and fuck with your mind.

The other books I'll recommend are written in music notation, but the thing with music theory books is that you don't need to know music notation, just look at the examples you want, and slowly transcribe them into pianoroll. It takes me like 5 minutes to read an 8 bars music notation (slow as fuck) and it didnt prevent me form learning all my classical knowledge from theory textbooks with music notation.

So if you want a real and full unrestricted understanding of western music, from classical to pop to EDM, I'd recommend this book http://www.amazon.ca/Harmony-Voice-Leading-Edward-Aldwell/dp/0495189758/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1381010907&sr=1-1&keywords=harmony+and+voice+leading

The difference with this books and the other one, is that it goes through all exceptions you will see in western music, so you see that almost anything is possible in music, and after you've finished the book you won't really have any questions per say regarding theory. Looking at a midi from a beatles song or a mozart's song won't really puzzle you.

The book probably takes about 200 hours to go through from start to end with no prior knowledge. I highly recommend it. Even if you start now and it takes you 10 years to finish it.

Now that you know everything about harmony, you might want to end your learning here, and that would be fine. This would allow you to create your own style.

But you also might to be able to analyze and imitate a composer or style that you like. You might still be confused about why a composer decided to use which harmony in the verse and which harmony in the chorus, and which harmony in the bridge, and which harmony before the chorus, etc. You might also be confused about how to create your melodic motives, how long should they be? how many times should they repeat? Why should my bridge be 12 bars or 8 bars? Why should my chorus be in a different key? Why did he use the same melodic motif (pattern) twice and then then the harmonic rhytmn accelerated before the chorus?

For this I recommend this book http://www.amazon.ca/Classical-Form-Functions-Instrumental-Beethoven/dp/019514399X/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1381011568&sr=1-2&keywords=classical+form+caplin

It also takes about 200 hours to go through (and that is if you have prior knowledge of harmony). After that composition of classical music won't have much secret to you. You'll know how to write a sonata and rondo, which most pop music is a simplified version of. I highly recommend this if you really want to be able to compose highly musical pieces, maybe something similar to video game music, or film score. I highly recommend reading at least the few chapters, where they talk about how to form 8 bars sections and ABA' sections (which most pop is based on).

Keep in mind that those 2 books are timeless and their information takes you from complete beginner to advanced. They are like bibles. So even if you buy them are read 1 chapter per month for 10 years, it will be invaluable to your musicianship. Like I'm sure you all know, music is an endless learning experience, so don't be intimiated with their size and complexity.

Now after reading that you want to get back to pop music but your brain is all about classical now (which is like western pop but on steroids). Don't worry, now that you know how to analyze classical, you will be able to understand and analyze most type of music. I would go with the classics and read those analysis of the beatles songs to come back full circle and write pop/EDM music with simple form. http://www.icce.rug.nl/~soundscapes/DATABASES/AWP/awp-notes_on.shtml

You can try reading the beatles analysis without prior knowledge, but a lot of the vocabulary you won't understand. You could also skip the Classical Form book and skip strait to the beatles analysis but then again, you might not fully understand what you're reading.

If anyone is interested I've made some video tutorial on the topic (it doesn't go in depth like the books) http://www.youtube.com/user/DaveCoutureMusic

And here's some examples of classical pieces I've composed (I dont play any instrument and learned everything from books by myself):

https://soundcloud.com/dave-couture/rondo-for-strings

https://soundcloud.com/dave-couture/creepy-piano-piece

Also anyone that wants to PM for tips or get me on facebook if you have questions, I'm always glad to help.

Sorry for the long post -- I don't want to be discouraging, the best times I've ever had were playing or listening to jazz. The feeling is indescribable.

Most importantly:
Getting some lessons from a jazz bass player will help big time. If for nothing other than some direction, a teacher can be a huge help.

On "walking a bassline":
Boiled down, you will be tasked with outlining the chord movement and keeping time by playing (roughly) quarter notes with a slight emphasis on beats 2 and 4, as opposed to 1 and 3.

The rhythm is critically important. You might be the only timekeeper playing at certain points. This doesn't mean you have to always be playing quarters, but you do have to be focused and have solid time: other people will depend on you. You can make embellishments -- the more effective the less frequently they are used -- leave rests, play long notes, imply a different time signature, etc. My favourite part of playing jazz is walking chorus after chorus and jamming on different rhythms with the drummer.

Harmony is your other job. This has to do with note choice. Like your rhythm, this will become more sophisticated with time but start simple. In a small group you'd have more flexibility but big bands will necessitate a straightforward approach: in short, chord-tones are good, avoid-notes are bad. You might need to get comfortable playing in some weird keys but if the band is centred around a horn section, you'll be playing in Bb and Eb a lot. Learn some melodic minor harmony, the m.minor, augmented lydian, and altered chords are all very common sounds in jazz and you'll need to be comfortable navigating these.

Albums to listen to and their bassists:
Miles Davis - So What (Paul Chambers)
Oscar Peterson Trio - Night Train (Ray Brown)
Modern Jazz Quartet - anything at all, these guys are awesome (Percy Heath)
Bill Evans Trio - Waltz for Debbie, Portrait in Jazz (Scott LaFaro) - It feels weird mentioning these guys without also saying something about Sunday at the Village Vanguard, but this is about walking lines and LaFaro was on fucking fire for that recording.
Diana Krall - Live in Paris (John Clayton) - Lots of straight standards, exemplary accompaniment from John Clayton.
Keith Jarrett Trio - Up For It (Gary Peacock)
The Quintet - Jazz at Massey Hall (Charles Mingus) - Superband with Bird, Dizzy, Bud Powell, Max Roach, and ol' Crazy Mingus. Dig the beboppy goodness.
Thelonius Monk Quartet ft. John Coltrane - At Carnegie Hall (Ahmed Abul-Malik)
Art Pepper Meets the Rhythm section (Paul Chambers) Same rhythm section from Miles' "So What," cool recording with egalitarian distribution of solo time fairly ahead of its time, and entirely fueled by heroin.

The albums are all fairly straightforward with plenty of walking going on. You might even be able to find a few at the library and there are plenty of more examples online. Sorry for the lack of electric bassists -- these are all DB players -- but the prevailing variation in jazz is the double bass. Truthfully, a huge part of the sound that characterizes a "walking bass line" (and other ostinato bass lines frequently used in jazz) is the quick note decay of an upright bass. The note envelope is very smooth on an electric bass by comparison and as a result many electric jazz players elect to accompany in some other distinct manner.

Some materials:
Rufus Reid's "The Evolving Bassist," is aimed primarily at new upright jazz bass players. Some of the DB-specific information might be unnecessary but this is absolutely the best instructional material on jazz bass I've ever seen.

Mike Downes' "The Jazz Bass Line Book" is, like you might expect, about making great basslines. Downes is a monster and his book is bitchin'.

tl;dr - This is a big question, and there's no real easy way to answer this. Basically, it's asking "How do jazz bass." Getting started is deceptively simple but great musicians have made their entire careers off of beastly walking.

I'm going to teach you all the mistakes I made in hopes that you won't make them yourself, if you aren't getting a teacher. A teacher is easily the best route, no comparison, without one, you're going to have to work your ass off.

1. Make use of every piano teacher on youtube, the best ones being Lypur,and Josh Wright. Their may be others, but those are essential.
   
   
2. Watch ALL Lypur's videos on the "Learn How To Play Piano (NEW) " playlist and "LEARN FREE MUSIC THEORY". I say start with watching the first 5 of each in a week, and then 1 a week as they get more complicated. And take good notes, just like in school.
   
   3)You need to buy books. I would say to start off with Josh Thompson's first grade one and then buying other ones such as Hanon, which is a MUST, and some like this one.
   
   4)Eventually after about a few months of practice, you can buy introductory books to certain composers, such as these: Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven. I wouldn't recommend the Chopin one, since his most easiest pieces can be quiet hard until you have a good 2 years of practice and playing in. And eventually Schumann's or Tchaikovsky's Album for the young, I don't know which would be better.
   
   5)This site is very good, and gives a nice breakdown of how you should spend your time practicing.
   
   6)And possibly most importantly, you have to find pieces that you like outside of books that you can learn. It's nice to learn little pieces that are in books, but the most satisfying feeling is playing a piece that you love.
   
   
   

Your frustration is perfectly natural. The same questions and doubts arise in all of us at all levels. The standard answers you noted are true, but only in your context and when you are at the right place in your journey.

A few things come to mind that might be of use.

Seek out a mentor. We all need guidance and teachers. Find someone who has had the type of succeses you are looking for. Ask questions and learn from the wisdom of their experience.

Seek out a collaborator. One of the most rewarding aspects of what we do is sharing it with others. Sharing the creative process and bouncing around new ideas with someone else is fun and creates an environment where new ideas and avenues can flourish.

Take time to be introspective without being reactive. Be real with yourself. What are your goals. Really think about the why and the outcome you hope see. Successful people are not successful by accident. They work incredibly hard to achieve their success - we are only seeing the end result.

Sometimes the best thing to do is take a break. Walk away from it and give your mind and spirit a rest so when you return it is with renewed exuberance. As odd as this may sound, when I take a break, my brain tells my it's time to come back through dreaming about playing and being on stage or jamming with others.

Something else you might consider is [Zen Guitar] (https://amzn.to/2IO4IfU) or [Victor Wooten's The Music Lesson] (https://amzn.to/2GbuyJf), both of which are fantastic and inspirational reads.

I hope this helps my friend!

Don't give up man. There's many ways to improve.


1.) My best advice, is find a good teacher that you like and feel comfortable around. Once you do you'll really begin to improve and like your sound.


2.) If you can't find a teacher there's plenty of online resources


3.) This is probably the best and hardest way to improve; it's very slow but the pay off is amazing. Transcribe everything. Start with the Beatles or CCR and transcribe simple chord songs and slowly (I mean after several months of doing this) move on to harder material.
This method is not recommended as it's hard, but it'll make you damn good.


Don't give up bro, I've played guitar for 5 years. I sucked for the first two, was mediocre the last 2 years and it's only recently that I've begun to get good. Just like anyone can learn algebra or learn to read anyone can play guitar.

Two Books to Recommend (On the Mental Aspect of Music):

Effortless Mastery - Liberating the Master Musician Within
by Kenny Werner. This book is simply awesome.

• Download it here (It's a safe download, I uploaded it myself. Shhh!)
  
  Zen Guitar - Philip Sudo
  
  
  don't click me! :)
  
  
• Even more awesome, it not only changed how I view music but also my life. This is personally better than Effortless Mastery, as what you read in the book not only affects your music mindset but spreads into your life. Buy It
  
  Two Final Tips
  
  

1. Just get into the habit of practicing, even if it's only for 5mins everyday. Make sure it's at the same time.
   
   
   
2. There's a cycle. Practice -> Improvement -> Motivation -> Practice -> Improvement - Motivation ->
   
   
   Occasionally you'll hit walls or plateaus at which point, watch Crossroads or listen to Zeppelin and remind yourself why you started playing, then go and practice.
   (-> = leads to)

Hey,

In terms of learning large volumes of work quickly, what's best to do when if you have a variety of difficulty levels is just play through the easy ones that you know will be OK every day. With the harder ones take care to isolate the difficult passages and practise them not only slowly but with different rhythms - if you have a fast quaver passage then practise it 4 times with dotted quaver (dotted eighth note) - semiquaver (sixteenth note) in the place of quaver - quaver. Then another 4 times with semiquaver (sixteenth note) - dotted quaver (dotted eighth note). Experiment with different rhythms.

To get used to the pieces it might be a good idea to get a few versions of the harder pieces you have to learn onto your mp3 player. Just get used to hearing them in the way the best players play them. It might result in your interpretation being pretty close to the guy's one on the track you listened to 10 times on repeat during your morning jog, but to be honest when you only have 2 weeks to learn a bunch of pieces you really want to make sure you can play it. If you feel really shitty then obviously it would be a good idea to ask maybe some of the players (a drummer and a few horns?) if they would play with you a few times away from the orchestra, in their own time, before the concert.

Are you used to playing with nails? If not then this will be a small part of a many year journey to find the right shape anyway... Don't apply any varnishes or anything - even many so-called strengthening solutions are just layers of a kind of varnish that ultimately damage the real nail. Eating a boiled egg in the morning helps keep them strong, as does jelly. Start doing things more with your left hand (ie. opening doors). Buy a nail buffer and look at Scott Tenants Pumping Nylon as a starting guide to nail care:

http://www.thebodyshop.co.uk/hand-care/accessories/big-nail-shiner.aspx?cm_mmc=FusePump-_-GoogleShopping-_-TagMan-_-Link&gclid=CLPjnKa0gbcCFVMftAodomUAgQ

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Pumping-Nylon-Classical-Guitarists-Technique/dp/088284721X

Good luck :D

When I was first starting out, way back in the last century, there were few places to go to learn this type of thing. And those that had the knowledge were usually less then excited at the thought of sharing their knowledge with you, so that you could become their competition.

But times have changed, and we have this Internet thing, and everybody is sharing everything. Maybe it isn't the Info Age, as much as it is the Era of Sharing, and sharing means a lot of crappy stuff gets thrown in the mix.

So choose your trusted sources carefully, and see who their trusted sources are.

For a good primer in guitar electronics, I recommend reading this book. It's dated, but it's basic info is good, and it's free to read in your browser (takes some time to load):

https://www.scribd.com/doc/2154081/Craig-Anderton-Guitar-Electronics-for-Musicians

I'm anticipating another book on guitar electronics from a source who's previous work I like:

https://hazeguitars.com/completeguitarwiring

This is a good video to understand shock hazards associated with play the electric guitar:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xS_5K5YEYv8&feature=youtu.be

When it comes to other aspects of guitar adjustment, Dan Erlewine has been the go-to source for decades. His books on guitar repair and maintenance are the gold standard. This first book I've linked is more for the guitar repair professional, and might be a bit much. But the second book I've linked should be must-reading for anyone curious about adjusting their guitar to play it's best:

https://www.amazon.com/Guitar-Player-Repair-Guide-3rd/dp/0879309210

https://www.amazon.com/Make-Your-Electric-Guitar-Great/dp/0879309989

Although I haven't actually read any of the books by John Carruthers, I studied under him and on the basis of that experience I would recommend anything he's involved in:

https://www.musiciansfriend.com/books-sheet-music-media/alfred-teach-yourself-guitar-repair-and-maintenance-book?src=3soswxxa

There are a bunch of John Carruther's videos on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9C05D39374BFA9B1

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLB7631EF18F62E16D

I like this book because it's illustrated so well:

https://www.amazon.com/Players-Guide-Guitar-Maintenance/dp/0879305495

Dan Erlewine is a consultant at the guitar tools and supplies seller Stewart-MacDonald. They are a good resource for not just tools and supplies, but they have educational videos, some of which you can get via email, and some of which can be seen on YouTube:

https://www.stewmac.com/

Many of the boutique pickup makers have blogs on their sites, where they talk about pickup design and characteristics.

Just learning good practices on installing strings on various types of guitars is an important starting place:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfK8lQZaq_8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hW0d9bBzUao

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvTFtHLOQvk

And if you can master the secrets of floating tremolo set-up, you can impress your friends and strike fear into the heart of your enemies:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYcGmMJnX0M&feature=youtu.be&t=213

There are so many more good sources, but that should give you a start.

I was actually in this exact situation when I started playing - was a highschooler with free time and just wanted to learn banjo.

1. Get a banjo: If you don't have one already, then this part is sort of a requirement. A standard 5-string is the best place to start. This Deering is a fantastic beginner banjo (and not too bad for performing either), but if price is an issue, I've heard that Gold Tone's work just fine as well.
   
2. Get some books/material: This book is by the master himself (Earl Scruggs). It's sort of an essential for anyone looking to play classic 3-finger (Scruggs style) banjo. If you're looking to play Clawhammer perhaps, this is a very good book for learning.
   
3. PRACTICE: It can seem difficult at first, but I recommend practicing as much as possible. When I first started, I practiced for about 1-2 hours everyday for a solid month. I was able to improve very quickly. And the best part is that I enjoyed every bit of it. That's another thing, if you really enjoy playing, then practicing shouldn't be verry difficult for you.
   
   Good luck, and have fun!

Hey, everyone starts somewhere. I hope I can point you in a decent direction here:


I started with hardware via guitar pedals and Nicolas Collins' "Handmade Electronic Music: The Art of Hardware Hacking" and have now moved into things like modular analog synthesis, Max/MSP (or Pure Data), and Supercollider. Of course there are many paths to go about understanding how to synthesize sounds, and why certain sound tools like biquad filters are necessary or convenient, but it is best for you to figure out how and why you would want to use those ideas for yourself.


One thing you have to understand is timbre. I'm not going to go into detail about it, because you seem motivated enough to lead your own path, but timbre is probably the most important reason sound synthesis exists. Think about it, the people who created synthesizers (E-mu, Moog, Bell Labs, etc.) wanted to make it easier to make "full" music without having to use a huge orchestra of people, so they figured out how to recreate the sounds of the instruments, the "timbres." At this point the timbres of synthesizers are their own, rather than trying to simulate others, and are what make synthesizers such an interesting part of musical instrument history.


Once you understand why timbre is so important, then you can look into what "voices" in synthesizers are. A simple "voice" in a synthesizer consists of three main components: An oscillator (or noise generator), a filter, and an voltage controlled amplifier that is usually controlled by an envelope generator. That is a really crude description of what a voice is, but that is why there are very expensive synthesizers with capabilities of their "voices" that are versatile and desirable depending on their design and components. And that is the main reason why things like a biquad filter are useful in certain situations.


I'm not going to go on too much longer here, but I will say one last thing about sound synthesis that will prove useful. That is that in sound theory, or the scientific analysis of sound (physics, acoustics, even psychoacoustics), it is theorized that every single timbre can be analyzed resolutely down to its constituents; every sound can be represented by a given number of sinusoidal frequencies (the more frequencies, the greater accuracy of the sound). That is a big one to bite into, and has a lot to do with "additive synthesis," but I feel that it is very important to understand this about sound theory in order to be proficient in sound synthesis.


Just for fun, a quote from one of my instructors, the one that taught the analog synthesis class I took: "Trying to filter a sine wave is the definition of futility."


Good luck out there, sound synthesis is a wide world of weird nerdy stuff.

Lol we should get coffee, I'm like the opposite-- ok with hardware synthesis but me trying to understand microcontrollers is comical.

​

Anyway I exported one of my earlier folders from when I was first reading and learning to HTML, its pretty disorganized but is a ton of random builds and info. Heres the html! https://file.io/DxE4uG ( if thats not working try https://gofile.io/?c=R3nHUN )

​

I'm a noob myself, but I recommend breadboarding and aiming for guitar pedals and effect stuff before jumping into other stuff. stuff like distortion is easy to make while tuned oscilators are... well, simple, but a lot of moving parts. There are a lot of cool youtube channels that have tutorials, one well known one (while a bit hectic) is sam at look mum no computer. For general hardware electronic understanding with some entertainment value I also like Electroboom's channel, and Diysynthguy is another good one to find cool kits through

​

If you are in the US, good sites to buy kits from are synthcube and modularaddict. outside of the US thonk is great and a lot of the synth companies in DIY modular are in europe so you can buy direct too, like from befaco.

​

Here are a good read on the topic too:

https://www.amazon.com/Handmade-Electronic-Music-Hardware-Hacking/dp/0415998735/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1537984669&sr=8-1&keywords=hardware+electronic+music+book

​

if you live in seattle, lets get a beer! Because I've been working with microcontrollers lately and it makes me want to blow my brains out.

For anything that involves advanced music theory, or more technical elements of music, your best bet (IMHO) is to stay clear from jazz/rock books or anything "popular" and read from traditional academic/classical composers. That is, if you're looking to understand music from a more historic point of view of how is was used, and how it worked for hundreds of years and how it still works today.

There are tons of good books out there, but off the top of my head I reccomend:

Regarding the art of counterpoint:


Preliminary exercises in Counterpoint - Schoenberg

Also, you could check out the traditional Fux's Study of Counterpoint, but I think Schoenberg's book is far more complete and incentive.

Regarding the art of Harmony:


For a long time I've always thought that books could educate you in any way, until I met my harmony teacher. After studying with her for a couple years I find it hard to believe how much information, technique, and art is missing from almost every book on the subject, some are exceptions, obviously, but my recommendation is that there is no better way of learning this but with personal intruction. Also, the teacher needs to be someone who has had a strong education in music from well-known masters of the past, as was my teacher.

Anyways, regarding harmony in the more poetical and theoretical sense I reccomend :

Rameau's Treatise on Harmony

and of course, Schoenberg's Theory of Harmony

For a more technical approach to harmony I haven't found any books I'm really fond of, but I do think that Paul Hindemith's book is a very good option.

For something in the middle I recommend this

Regarding form and structure in music:


Once again, I have never seen information and instruction similar to that which I received with my professors, however here are a few good picks...

Schoenberg's Fundamentals of musical composition

and 2 books that I found very useful were...
(these I didn't find on amazon.com)

from German composer Clemens Kuhn: "Formenlehre der Musik" (this is only in German)

and from Spanish composer Joaquin Zamacois: "Curso de Formas Musicales" (this is only in Spanish I believe)

Well, surely there are more books, but I think these are good options for you to start. However, always with a grain of salt

work through the original Aaron Shearer books (I linked book 1, there are 3, you should at least go through the first two and maybe some of the supplemental ones) . If your classical technique is decent then you will breeze through them pretty quickly but you might pick up a few subtle things like playing rest-stroke with your thumb at the same time as free-stroke with your fingers and vice-versa. Once you are good there there are two books you should buy: Pumping Nylon for the various exercises it has. They are very good if you play them regularly. Then buy The Library of Guitar Classics. It is a big spiral bound book of repertoire that looks like a lot of those piano-rep books. It has music ranging from easy to very hard and from the renaissance period all the way through the romantic era with pieces by Tarrega and Albeniz. There is a lot of really good rep in there. There is also a second volume of the book that is almost as good. When it comes to more modern music buy the Villa-Lobos book and work through some of that stuff. It is a great book that was edited by - if I remember correctly - Frederick Noad. There are also some really good books with the complete Bach cello/lute suites (although some of that can be found in the books I already mentioned).

If you REALLY want to kick your ass, see if you can dig up a copy of the Abel Carlevaro right hand book. It is like the Giuliani 120 studies on steroids. I have never struggled that hard to play an arpeggio in my life! I think it is this book but I am not sure. I had a really old photo-copy of it and I don't know where it came from.

You need to consider why you want to learn guitar. That will answer some of your questions in itself.

For instance, do you intend to become a professional, virtuoso concert guitarist? If not, what difference does it make if you won't be as good as you could have been if you'd started earlier?

If you're like me, and you play for the pleasure of playing, for the joy of making music, how good you are doesn't really matter. I play because I love playing and I always have, even when I was just starting out and awkwardly struggling through my first chords. Practicing is never work for me because it's fun.

That's not to say that I'm not constantly trying to get better -- I certainly am. But this isn't a job or competition for me, it's something I do for fun and enjoyment. Let yourself have fun with it and the rest just doesn't matter. So if you're having a hard time learning to play something, but you're enjoying the learning process, it's all good. If playing the guitar is a chore for you, why bother? It's supposed to be fun.

So I say to you, go try it. Try to enjoy it. Find your way of making music with a guitar. If you love playing, keep it up. If it's just drudgery to you, let it go. There are no guitar police out there who will throw you in jail if you "aren't good enough" or you don't learn the "right way". There is no "right way". If you are enjoying making your own music then you are good enough and you're doing it the right way!

This is a wonderful book on the subject.

If you can spare the money I most definitely recommend finding a teacher. You will want to start with rudiments (they can be boring, but you'll be glad you did them in the long haul) and while you can pick them up from books, having a teacher giving feedback helps a lot. You don't have to stay with a teacher on the long-term, if you make it clear that you just want a solid base most teachers know what you mean and want.

If you don't have that money, these are three books I highly recommend to anybody who wants to play any percussion instrument:

http://www.amazon.com/Stick-Control-For-Snare-Drummer/dp/1892764040/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_b

Description: This book is full of rudiments. Like ctrocks said: This book is evil. You will most likely both grow to hate and love it. Hate it for both how boring rudiments can get (to me, at least) and how hard they get. But love it for the results and seeing how all those rudiments advance your playing immensely. I suggest picking this up as soon as possible.



http://www.amazon.com/Accents-Rebounds-For-Snare-Drummer/dp/1892764067/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1343162586&sr=8-1&keywords=Accents+and+Rebounds

Description: The 'sequel' to Stick Control. This book adds accents and even more difficult rhythms. I would suggest picking this up at an intermediate level.

http://www.amazon.com/Progressive-Steps-Syncopation-Modern-Drummer/dp/0882847953/ref=cm_lmf_tit_5

Description: Don't let this book fool you. It all starts out really simple. But this is one of those books that really lays down a foundation you will be very grateful for. And when you're getting to a more advanced level, you will see how you can translate a lot of these syncopated rhythms to the entire drumkit. I suggest picking this up as soon as possible.


http://www.amazon.com/4-Way-Coordination-Development-Complete-Independence/dp/0769233708/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_c

Description: This book is very well named. You will want to grab this book after you got the basics down, imo. You want to work on the independence of your limbs as soon as possible, but not too soon. Yet again: rudiments. But now rudiments that require all limbs.


http://www.amazon.com/Advanced-Techniques-For-Modern-Drummer/dp/0757995403

Description: We're starting to get into the bigger leagues with this book. I honestly don't quite know how to describe this book except for the word: challenging. Challenging in a very, very good way. I recommend picking this up once you're starting to get into a more advanced stage.


These books are for the basics, imo and in the opinion of many fellow drummers as far as I know. But don't forget: the books are merely tools. You don't want to be only playing rudiments, you'll go crazy. I tended to go for a trade: every half out of rudiments rewards me with a half our of putting on tracks and rocking out. Resulting in one-hour sessions a day. Hope this helps!

Edit: Feeling bored so added more books and descriptions.

I'll comment on the tools. I do my own setups and have for years. I don't have any professional luthier tools. I do not do setups for others to receive payment.

I view tools like those linked as great resources for professional techs who are looking to do a lot of setups quickly and to a very high degree of technical accuracy. Having high quality tools makes the job easy and efficient.

But I don't think that level of tools is required. You could fashion your own from some basic stuff you could get at any hardware store or use some other 'tricks' that don't require tools. Also, realize that the idea of 'setting up' a guitar is not a black / white binary situation. Getting a guitar setup to a place that it plays well to your preferences is very doable with a screwdriver and some practice.

For example, the basic setup kit has some great tools - but you can accomplish a similar job much cheaper with some research. The string action gauge could be made by printing those radius' on a piece of thick poster board. Dan's book 'How to Make a Guitar Play Great' has this exact tool as a punch out in the back. A precision straight edge could be replaced with a decent ruler or wood or metal that is confirmed straight elsewhere.

Again, with the tune-o-medic kit you can service a Tune-O-Matic bridge very successfully with a typical screwdriver. The specialized tools would be helpful if you're doing a lot of setups each day - possibly on valuable or vintage guitars where a greater level of care is needed.

A truss rod wrench could be replaced with a screwdriver and a set of hex heads available at a hardware store.

So if it were me, I'd buy a copy of that book (linked above) and go through it. Some basic screwdrivers and allen wrenches should be able to get you through almost all basic setup procedures. If you get to more advanced things like fretwork, finish repair, or are doing lots of setup for paying customers - then look into specialized tools.

It'll definitely help you to understand each orchestral instrument's strengths and weaknesses. I would fanatically recommend investing in a copy of The Essential Dictionary of Orchestration. It has everything you'll ever need to know about just about every orchestral instrument. It includes what they are good at doing and how they are normally used, special considerations for each instrument, the dynamic ranges at every extreme of the instrument's range, what that range is, how to notate them on the page (this is particularly helpful for percussion), and much more.

​

For example, I just popped my copy open to a random page. It's on the Horn in F (French Horn). Here's some stuff it has to say about it.

"Tonal and Dynamic Qualities"

"Low Register"

"In this register the tone quality lacks focus, is tuba-like, unsolid and quite dark. This subdued tone is more apt to provide a supportive "presence" than a confident tone. Projection is poor and intonation problems are more likely to be encountered in this register.

"Middle Register"

"Here, the horn in F is the most characteristic-sounding. The tone quality can vary from warm, dark, and haunting to velvety, noble and heroic. At louder dynamics and/or when ascending the register, the tone becomes brighter and projection increases. The best control of the instrument is offered in this register."

"High Register"

"Ascending the high register, the tone becomes progressively more brilliant and exciting. The higher the player ascends, the more difficult it is to play softer dynamic levels. Consequently, notes above written high G are almost impossible to play softly."

​

And it doesn't stop there!! It continues on to list general characteristics of the French Horn like its extremely wide range and ability to blend into an orchestra, technical considerations like its lack of agility compared to other brass instruments, tips on notating for them since there's historical reasons to notate them a certain way, and even possible special effect indications like "brassy," "bells up," "lontano," muting, etc. as well as what they all mean. (I didn't know what lontano meant until I read it for this comment.)

Take note that I did NOT add in that bolded text myself. The book actually does that so you can take a glance at it just for quick tips if you want.

Seriously I can't recommend that book enough. It'll only run you $10, fits your pocket, and is a resource you'll consistently turn to when you wonder about a certain instrument. (I turn to it often, anyway).

10/10 for sure.

I'm not into jazz, but I had this book highly recommended to me: http://www.amazon.com/Voicings-Jazz-Keyboard-Frank-Mantooth/dp/0793534852/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1451105347&sr=8-6&keywords=jazz+comping

Full disclosure: it is for jazz and involves a lot of 9ths and 13ths you can go an entire career as a rock keyboardist and never use. However, the premise of the book is solid...what range to play in to best avoid "stepping on" other instruments.

I put this forward because it is pretty fundamental if you're going to be playing with other musicians.

Other than that, you have a massive leg up on many of the rest of us. I'm a keyboardist now but come from a piano background similar to you. I haven't gotten the whole thing solved yet, but it's important to keep an open ear at all times and listen to what sounds like is needed. Don't do a bunch of stuff when the guitarist is, when the singer is singing, etc. Keep it simple and, if you ever get lost, hump the tonic note of whatever song you're playing.

Other than that, go to local jam nights and soak in what the guys are playing. Then go home and listen to those songs, specifically what the keyboardists in those songs are doing (if there are keyboard lines).

Yes, knowing the chords and their inversions is a must. Know all the major chords, minor chords, 7ths, sus's, and all their different inversions...ie CEG, EGC, & GCE are all different ways to play a C major and all make the song sound different.

Anyway, I'm in a rock band, do some background piano music behind a singer, and do some solo piano stuff. I'm no expert, but I'll help you out. I've been where you are, though perhaps with a tenth of your talent. As always, desire and hard work will get you wherever you want to go. Cheers and good luck!(which you will make yourself ;) )

I've been playing and practicing for 2 years 4 months at this point. For the entire first year of practice I utilized the Seinfeld Method of Productivity. My goal was to practice guitar for at least 30 minutes a day.




This helped me get to the point where I felt comfortable handling the instrument and was actually able to start to get some more creative enjoyment from it.




The important thing here is deliberate practice. Meaning, don't lose focus, figure out what you're going to be working on for that 1/2 hour and stick to it. This could be theory, chords, alternate tunings, etc. Just make sure to cover the basics somewhere in there. I bought a great book to help me with the fundamentals, Pumping Nylon. This book is for folks getting into classical guitar. Though, in my opinion, all guitarists ought to start with classical if you'd like to develop the best/most efficient techniques in your right and left-hands.



Beyond that- I'd say the most important component is passion. Ask yourself why you're willing to put in so many hours into something. Come up with reasons that keep you excited for the next thing!



For me, my passion comes from the fact that, in this lame world we live in, magic doesn't exist. I'll never be able to pursue my childhood fantasy of becoming a Wizard. However- Music does exist, and, in my opinion, music has many of the same qualities of magic. You can transport a listener into an emotional landscape of your making. You can create a world of sound where you get to call all of the shots. You can ease someones pain, create excitement, wax-poetic about love, you can even create unease and a sense of creeping dread. It's all up to you and how you handle your instruments of sound.



This is what keeps me pursuing the guitar and music. The rest of the world fades away while I'm playing. I suppose it's almost like having a day dream that other people can hear.



I'm not sure if I answered your questions or not :P

tl;dr - Deliberate daily practice and passion seem to be working for me.

I have a similar background, and just recently started again. I started out with some more basic songs.
There are tons of theories out there on practicing and playing. Hanon is good to get your fingers trained again, but musically it's not as much fun.
I would suggest finding some easier pieces and work on playing those well. That way you can build up your confidence, enjoy yourself, and work your way up to trickier compositions.

Personally I started with 'first lessons in Bach':
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1423421922/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

And album for the young by Schumann. These pieces are really fun and quite varied as well:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0793529948/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Then for some great advice which I picked up on the pianoworld forums:

• Don't try to rush through a song and make the same mistakes every time. This way you're training yourself to play the wrong notes, and it becomes harder each time to unlearn it.
  
• Instead, start playing very slow and make sure to get the fingers and notes correct from the beginning. Once you play it right at the slow tempo, start playing faster.
  
• Instead of playing through a piece from beginning to end and glossing over the few hard sections, mark those... and then practice them until they're easy. Break down in very small sections and practice until you get it right!
  
  This has really proven beneficial for me, and allowed me to learn pieces quicker! Currently I'm working on Schubert Impromptu Op 90 No 3. It's so beautiful.
  Good luck in your learning. You'll most likely get frustrated, which is normal. Learning the piano is a marathon, not a sprint. There will be days where you can't hit a right note, but other days where you surprise yourself.

For beginner-level jazz drumming, John Riley's The Art of Bop Drumming is a fantastic resource to get you going. It builds from the basics by starting you with just the hi-hat/ride ostinato, then adds in comping ideas that you can use with the snare or kick, then starts to combine them. Later it has a nice selection of 1-bar phrases and soloing ideas as well as brush techniques. Riley does a good job of explaining his notation and how to play through the exercises.

In between the exercises are high-level descriptions of jazz playing (explaining the framework of a jazz tune, the drummer's role in a jazz combo, how your playing can influence the other musicians). The CD includes some tunes, and there are lead sheets in the back of the book, so you can get a feel for what the musicians are basing the songs on.

For rock/funk drumming, I've gotten a lot of mileage out of Gary Chaffee's Patterns series. I started my formal lessons by working through the Fatback Exercises in his Time Functioning Patterns, and they are incredible. You play a fixed cymbal pattern (eighth notes, for example) and a fixed snare pattern (strictly on 2 & 4), then go through every iteration of bass drum 16th note phrasing that can accompany your snare drum without kicking on 2 & 4. It works out to 128 different patterns (2^7) contained in 3 pages. It took several months before I could play through all of them consecutively, but I was blown away by how much more flexible my playing around that 2 & 4 snare framework became in such a short time.

If your coordination is already good enough to breeze through those exercises, you can change the cymbal ostinato, and then it's a whole new game. You can add in a tricky pattern with your left foot if you're really feeling adventurous. There's a tremendous amount of work to be done with just 3 pages, and there's a lot of other material in the book - his jazz section provides a similar resource for improving your flexibility when playing swing time (triplet-based), and the linear section provides a very cool system for developing fills, solo ideas, or full linear grooves. For a beginner, I think the Fatbacks are where it's at, but here's a video of a guy looking at some of the other exercises (a different 3-page section) in a more advanced context.

There are some cons to the Chaffee book. Notation is weird, and he doesn't do a great job of explaining it himself. To save space, he frequently notes his exercises as single beat or two-beat phrases rather than full measures, so you have to repeat them to get a full measure. He also uses a minimal staff, so a snare-kick exercise like the Fatbacks only gets 1 staff line (two spaces). If I hadn't had a teacher explaining the exercises to me, I would have found them very confusing. Since the ideas here are so flexible, it can be hard to sense how they'd be used in a more musical context. Compared to the Riley book, which has some really nice, musical comping phrases, the Chaffee stuff is broken down into such small blocks that it doesn't flow on its own. That makes it incredibly powerful for building your flexibility as a player, but it can be frustrating sometimes to work through exercises that don't sound good when repeated as a half- or quarter-bar phrase, even if they'll be interesting once you've incorporated them into your arsenal.

TL;DR: Riley's Art of Bop Drumming, Chaffee's Time Functioning Patterns as beginner resources with advanced potential

You can't buy a factory made classical guitar that is truly high quality. Yamaha makes great beginning classical guitars. I wouldn't pay over $500 for anything with a "brand name," if you're looking for a nice classical then start looking for luthiers or a dealer in your area that sells luthier guitars(either should let you try their guitars before you buy).


D'addario Pro-Arte strings are generally regarded as the all-around best classical guitar strings, and fortunately they're also the cheapest. Go with normal or hard tension if you like more resistance.


The book Pumping Nylon is a great technical resource for classical guitarists at any level.
http://www.amazon.com/Pumping-Nylon-Scott-Tennant/dp/088284721X

http://www.amazon.com/Library-Guitar-Classics-willard-Series/dp/0825614759/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_y

^ Volume 1 and 2 of that guitar classics book are great for finding rep out of, they have great music from different eras, composers, and difficulties.


More specifically, studies by Sor, Carcassi, or Brouwer are great for beginning pieces. You can move from there to pieces by Tarrega, Villalobos, possibly some easier Bach like BWV999 or Cello Suite#1. Really anything you want. For best results, seek our recordings and videos of well-renowned(not just some shmuck on youtube) guitarists. Use these to make sure you're not playing wrong notes, inspire your own interpretation, and possibly steal their fingerings if it's a video.

USB sends midi information to the computer, hun!

https://www.plogue.com/products/sforzando/

this soundfont player has a nice standalone player!

https://www.plogue.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=7090

there are lots of free soundfonts, but the garritan jazz piano that comes with this is really, really nice and I highly recommend it.

Use the soundcard you have, friend! If you're not recording 1/4" or XLR in, you don't need an external soundcard.

http://www.reaper.fm/

here's a DAW I'd highly recommend! Record your piano in midi clips on there to a metronome (or simple drum loop), you can load sforzando in Reaper as a VST

https://www.amazon.com/Drum-Programming-Complete-Program-Drummer/dp/0931759544

here's a book on drum programming! You can easily find a pdf of it on the internet, download some drum samples, n get going with composition.

Youtube is a really good resource for you also!!! Find yourself piano, theory, and composition lessons n give em your all

Good luck friend

Practice is important, but the focus should be on learning good upright style position playing, especially in first and second position. And learning to really incorporate open strings in your playing, as that definitely helps you 'calibrate' unconsciously. Learning to walk changes like that will easily dial it in, esp. if you start working to tempo. Use iReal Pro and just practice random Real Book changes, or the standard jazz exercise sets available.

I have students switching to fretless pick up the Rufus Reid book [The Evolving Bassist] (https://www.amazon.com/dp/0967601509/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_40YQCb7935GP8) to learn double bass position playing and walking/2 feel lines. (I use the [Chuck Rainey](The Complete Electric Bass Player, Book 1: The Method https://www.amazon.com/dp/0825624258/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_p3YQCbKQKWVWG) books for fretted players, which i heartily recommend in general, btw)

Mostly its a matter of getting a steady, repeatable hand position in the lower registers and letting the muscle memory develop.

Perfect intonation is a goal, but i never worry about it when i get moving in a line or solo. Developing a good vibrato and approach/slide covers a lot of minor mistakes. And on stage, no one will notice a few cents out of tune especially if you play expressively and use good vibrato and slide movement on approach notes.

learning jazz is the same as learning pop punk is the same as learning any other style you can think of. Think of how you learned to play stuff like Coheed (not exactly simple music), you can take a similar path to learning jazz. Here's what I would suggest,

Listen to lot's and lot's of jazz. Miles Davis' Kind of Blue, as well as Workin with the Miles Quintet, Steamin' with the Miles Quintet, Cookin with the Miles Quintet and Relaxin with the Miles Quintet are great places to start. (check out the musician's that played on those records and check out their records)

Learn how to write drum music and write down the things you hear on those records. Listen to what the other musicians play and think about how the drummer reacts to those things.

Play lot's and lot's of jazz. Put some head phones on and play the ride cymbal pattern along with your favorite records. Play the things you write down while listening.

These things alone will give you a ton of stuff to work on and will improve your playing a ton.

If you want to work with a book I suggest this one buy John Riley, http://www.amazon.com/Drumming-Book-Manhattan-Music-Publications/dp/089898890X

good luck and have fun!

As an older employed guy, he charges me $40 for 40 minutes. The is the basic going rate in town for professional lessons. But I have heard from others that he will work with some on a sliding scale. But, if you truly only have a couple hours playing so far, the very first thing to figure out is how serious you are. In the beginning, you have to devote a least several hours a week practicing both scales and chords. Both finger strength and dexterity are the key to getting anywhere, and there really are no shortcuts, other then practice, and practice some more. Consider getting this book set: https://www.amazon.com/Hal-Leonard-Guitar-Method-Complete/dp/0634047019/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1485995196&sr=8-1&keywords=learn+guitar
It will both teach you how the very basics of reading music, and make you practice putting your fingers on the right frets. Do you have to know how to read music? Well, not if you are only looking to sing around the campfire.. but if you ever want to play music with others, and not be totally lost, it is pretty much a must that you know some level of chord structure. Speaking of, here is one of the cheapest chord books you can buy:https://www.amazon.com/Alfreds-Basic-Guitar-Chord-Chart/dp/0739048953/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1485995714&sr=8-1&keywords=basic+guitar+chords
Learn the following chords C,D,E,F,G, Em, Am, Dm. Most songs can be played in the key of C, (which is C, dm,em,F,g,am). There are an mind numbing ways to play each and every chord, so learn the ones that you can play in the first 3 frets to start with. Then learn the E, em and A barre chords, again practice will give you strength and you will start to build up finger callus's too. Once you can jump from chord to chord somewhat comfortably, then go see Ron (or a taskmaster of your choice) Consider finding others that want to start, and meet once a week. OK, enough babble... ( you can tell I love playing....)

I second the jazz piano book, jazzadvice.com, and all the rest of this advice.

My two favorite music books are Victor Wooten's The Music Lesson and Philip Toshio Sudo's Zen Guitar. They contain wisdom that a lot of other music education misses.

As far as playing the piano goes, I recommend really exploring the piano as an instrument. Find the piano's strong and unique points, and be pianistly (in this sense). Conversely, target the piano's weak points, and learn to imitate other instruments: playing long unbroken lines like a sax will make you "light on your fingers" and help you to decompartmentalize fingering patterns you have learned.

I'm a big fan of this video right now. Download the pdf too, and practice the scales listed. The idea of chords being fragments of larger scale families (and being able to hear the entire scale families going by) is important. This is easiest to wrap your head around by playing modal chords on a C major scale. Allan holdsworth explains it better. This also ties into the "find which notes can be added to round out the standard chords" thing- if you hear the entire scale, then extrapolating which notes can be added is fairly intuitive.

Also, listen to great players. I like powell, monk, tatum, george shearing, and marian mcpartland, Mccoy Tyner, Kenny Barron, Esjborn Svensson Trio, Keith Jarrett, and Bill Evans. These are just a few mainstream examples. Also, learn from other instrumental traditions. If you like something, try to extrapolate a principle or lesson that you can bring with you from that song, and likewise if you dislike something, articulate what it is you dislike, then you can learn to play the opposite. John Hartford says "style is based on limitations", so choose carefully how you learn to play. If you don't like something, don't learn to play like that just because it's part of the jazz aesthetic cannon or some nonsense.

Also, play with someone. Play with bandinabox, which is easy to steal and fairly cheap to buy, and has many many many song files freely available online. Play with a metronome, at least.

Learn to adjust your technique to different pianos. Not every piano you play on will be good or even fair, so being able to get a feel for a new instrument and its limitations quickly is a great skill. On your home instrument, focus all the more strongly on finding technique compatible with that instrument. On a related note, let your mind step back and lead with your hands, letting fingerings and reflexes show you the way forward. On the other hand, let your technique fade into the foreground and practice bringing out the ideas in your ear, even if they navigate unfamiliar territory (do this slowly or it won't work and you'll revert to reflex) Both modes have their merits, and the more you get comfy with both, the less of a distinction there is between them.

Also, practice singing and playing. Meld your understanding of harmony on the piano with your ear and voice. Also, practice thinking big (long musical fragments, specific complex voicings, etc, etc) at & away from the instrument. If you can't think big, your creativity will never have good macro structure & flow. I really believe that our creative impulse is a divine gift, but it often builds on our existing experience and abilities.

The first thing I’d try to impress the most on you is the practice of GOOD practice. That in itself will make this whole new process less difficult for you to overcome:

— 30 minutes to an hour, 6 days a week (your brain as well as your body needs to rest). This step is really important.
Don’t practice for like, 3 days and then a month later come back. You’ll lose all of what you practiced and basically have to start over again. You want to be as consistent as possible so that you train your brain to be efficient — not your fingers.

— Keep a journal of what you practiced and how long.
Going back and looking at your progress after a month of doing so will help you to see how far you’ve come in such a short period of time and will help you gain confidence that you don’t, in fact, suck.

— Don’t play anything above your means. If you haven’t managed something like Bach’s Minuet in G than don’t try to play Flight of the Bumblebee by Korsakov. You’ll only hurt yourself and your technique and discourage yourself in the process. The later is the most dangerous.

— Learn some of your favorite pop songs. Classical music is cool and all but, you can also learn a lot from non traditional teachings of chords, harmonies and technique. Plus, you’ll look cooler at parties if you can, in fact, play Flight of the Bumblebee and then follow it up with Bohemian Rhapsody.

Here’s some books and websites that I started out with.
They’ll help to propel you in the right direction with everything that I’ve taught you thus far:

For challenging yourself/learning new pieces: https://www.amazon.com/First-Lessons-Bach-Complete-Schirmers/dp/1423421922

For sight reading practice: https://www.amazon.com/4S01-Royal-Conservatory-Sight-Reading/dp/1554407427/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1543250017&sr=1-1&keywords=Four+star+sight+reading+book+1

For free scores of almost anything classically written: https://imslp.org

Here’s also a link to one of my favorite piano channel’s that talks about technique, progressing in skill and a plethora of other details that I didn’t cover: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCz0PmHG0RvQHazlEsFU-4uQ

I wish you nothing but the best in your journey.
Fight against the current and make your dream a reality.


A. B. Martin
Live Alive With A. B. Martin — https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyPSSMyYUS_KT8xcg7OsbBQ

Ok that helps! There is a book that the Minnesotan composer Carl Schroeder said I should get, that I think would benefit you too! It's around $6 give or take on amazon, and here it is:
http://www.amazon.com/Essential-Dictionary-Orchestration-The-Series/dp/0739000217/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_z
There are others in the series that would help too, but this is the one I suggest. It has a list of many many instruments, both standard and non-standard, what the timbre is like, the range of the instrument, among other things. It's not really a good read, but more of a reference to go to. As for general orchestration. Do what I do (sometimes) just combine random instruments together, have them play together. Plug it into some software and see how it sounds. After awhile you get a sense of what works together and what doesn't. For example, flute and oboe sound nice. Clarinet and bassoon go well. Horn and Viola section are pretty decent. When high together, viola and cello sound very cool. All those sorts of things. If you say you've been listening and listening to music, then unfortunately I'm going to have to say you've probably been listening to them wrong. Get a score to read off of while you listen and highlight passages you find intriguing and find why it is. Is it the instrumentation? The melody? A combo of both? Best of luck, my friend!

Don't give up. Learning ANY instrument is frustrating as hell. I remember my first days of scales and wanting to chuck my brand new guitar across the room (been playing for 8 years). I'm glad I was stubborn and kept at it - in about a year's time I was working my way through Satriani riffs by ear.

Practice SLOWLY. I don't care who you are, but you can't just pick up a piece and expect to play it perfectly the first time through - ask ANY of the performers from ANY G3 how they started a song, they'll answer "slowly." As EMG81 said: "Perfect practice makes perfect," and he couldn't be more right. If you practice something fast and sloppy, guess what? You'll play it inaccurately and sound like you have drunk fingers - you don't want that. The sign of a guitar god is clean fret fingerings and string pickings.

Practice alternate picking. I will never forget the day my teacher showed me how to do alternate picking. Until that day I'd been playing all down strokes or upstrokes on my scales - a REALLY GOOD WAY TO START - but when he showed me alternate picking and how to do it properly I thought "eh, that's not too hard." It was THE most frustrating part of learning the guitar.

I've mentioned them several times now: learn your scales. I recommend picking up this book for quick fingering references. I've learned the sweep patterns in that book and it's made soloing and writing riffs so much easier.

Finally it's been said several times by others, but learn what you like. After you get your fingers used to the neck and fretboard just have fun - the rest will come in time if you stick with it.

I started at 19, but came from a musical family and came off of tinkering with guitar for 13 years prior and a steady gig in school on the trumpet. Got my first bass at 19 as it was the mid 90's and grunge was hot and there were so many opportunities to be in a band but nobody wanted to play bass.

Don't get discouraged! Ask anyone here; playing bass is not only a lot of work but it's a "growing" experience. Unless you're Mozart people just don't pick up the unwieldy instrument and become proficient over night. Notwithstanding the muscle training just to get past that awkward stage where you have to stop and think about where you put a single finger on a string, there's the whole emotional aspect, as well as the mental, academic and spiritual components of bringing music to life. The only way to become an "experienced players" and gain "experience" is to experience the journey; if you can get into a band quickly do it. Your playing will advance exponentially.

Check out the book called Zen Guitar. It's very easy, short and enlightening as well as watch some of Victor Wootens teaching vids. He has some great concepts that will change how you look at bass and music.

Good fortune to you.

> I'm teaching myself how to use a drum machine

Check out Hydrogen (I know it says for Linux, but it also works on Windows and OSX), which is the best free computer-based drum machine I know of. LMMS is pretty cool, too, but it's more geared towards techno. Still, if you want to make chiptune punk, worth checking out.

Drum Programming: A Complete Guide to Program and Think Like a Drummer is also an awesome book to program beatboxes (or Hydrogen) to sound natural. I used that, back when I had a guitar.

Not a website, but: I'm using The Piano Handbook by Carl Humphries. It's the best instruction book I've ever read. I recommend it highly.

I've also used Fundamentals of Piano Practice by C. C. Chang. It is a comprehensive guide to practice techniques favoured by Mr. Chang and his daughers IIRC. I'm not qualified to say if this is the "best" technique, but it certainly works.

There's more classical sheet music that you could ever want at the International Music Score Library Project.

Good luck! :)

It's always a good idea to try them out in person to see how they sit with you as if it's uncomfortable you won't want to practice with it. Since you said you can't, the MS model you're looking at looks like a good option. From what I can tell, the only difference is that it's matte finished which shouldn't be much of a difference at all compared to the S model. Yamaha makes some great instruments so I think you're safe with whichever you choose.

A tuner and picks are a must (in my opinion) but it's also nice to have a strap so you can practice standing up. A good beginners book that teaches you chords and some basic notation is also good to have around when starting out. This is a good one that will give you some structure when you practice.

Good luck!

Standing the Shadows of Motown is the book that has had the single greatest impact on my playing overall.

The first part is a cool bio about James Jamerson and the Motown studio origins, and then it is super well done transcriptions and explanations of his bass lines which are some of the most innovative and influential bass lines of all time. The book also comes with cd's (if those are still relevant) of the songs with bass mixed to front so you can play along which was super helpful. Using that book taught me the bulk of note reading, taught me the mechanics of writing bass lines that compliment melodies, rhythms and complicated arrangements and really cemented a sense what is groovy and what is catchy.

I cannot recommend standing in the shadows of Motown enough https://www.amazon.com/Standing-Shadows-Motown-Legendary-Jamerson/dp/0881888826

> Add the E flat clarinet to the piccolo if you want some extra punch/piercing/volume.

Does anyone really want "extra punch/piercing/volume" from a piccolo?

> Add the oboes or clarinets to the flutes if the flutes sound too thin. Consider doubling these in octaves. Harmony can serve a similar purpose and provide a different timbre than exact doubling.

Writing flutes and clarinets/oboes together definitely brings the flutes closer to the sound of the reed instruments. I'd think unison is the best bet. Octave doubling is an effect all its own, and shouldn't be used without purpose. However, if done, doubling should occur over the highest voice or under the lowest voice.

> Clarinets and violins or violas can sound almost identical if scored creatively. They blend very easily.

In my experience, clarinet gets masked by strings if they're in the same register. You're the clarinetist, though. What's your take?

> These are just a handful of ways to spice up your sounds. There are infinitely more, and you'll just have to experiment with them to figure out what you like.

"Experiment" is a strange word to use for an expensive ensemble that requires a lot of manpower and a huge amount of skill to write for. Assuming OP even has access to an orchestra, I would be incredibly surprised if the conductor or any of the musicians tolerated repeated experimentation with bad orchestration that wastes their rehearsal time. Better and cheaper is to get a couple of books on orchestration (Rimsky-Korsakov, Piston, Adler, Gerou/Black), do exercises, have a composer who knows what they are doing critique said exercises, and study the shit out of scores. And no, sound libraries are not the same thing as a real orchestra.

>Don't underestimate the value of letting an instrument stand on its own though. Don't double everything or else you'll get a machine instead of an orchestra. That said, the best way to figure out what sounds good is to pick up some scores you like, listen to them while you read, and figure out what sounds you like.

Solid advice. Overscoring is the most common mistake of composers unfamiliar with the orchestral medium.

Learning to read music is probably most important. While there is more and more classical repertoire available in tab, the tendency is to get stuck in someone else's fingerings. People talk about classical as being very rigid and set in its ways but the freedom to play a note wherever it works best for you is one of the great strengths of the guitar. This is something that tab can take away from you. The "correct" position that is variously so lauded and derided is - at least today - a compromise of ergonomics and technical requirements. The guitar is not a very ergonomic instrument so apparatus usually needs to be brought in to play in order to get it in the right position but this position varies considerably from player to player. The main concern is that the music is playable; much of it would not be without full control of technique. "Proper" position is something that takes years, even decades, to figure out, I know players in their 60's who will tell me "I found this new support that works with my footstool, now my height is nearly perfect!"

Resist the temptation to attempt pieces that are too advanced too soon. You're going to do it, every player is, but the frustration of moving so slowly with little to no results is dangerous. I've heard so many students come in and play Asturias or Bouree (or any of the other "standards") without any concept of the pieces in a musical sense. They play the right notes mostly but there is no division of melody and harmony, no concept of counterpoint, dynamics or anything else that makes this music brilliant. These students often become completely dejected when they are told by a teacher, jury or audition panel that they are not nearly as good as think they are, in so many words. The problem usually comes from a poorly structured education, either from themselves or teacher(s), and jumping into material they don't yet understand.

I would strongly recommend finding a good teacher because any one book is not enough (there are a few good ones like Aaron Shearer's Learning the Classic Guitar and Pumping Nylon) but none of them cover everything you need and there will be some contradictions. In order to learn most effectively, you must do so without confusion and error. If you learn a mistake or bad habit, it will be more difficult to fix later on than if you never learned it wrong in the first place. If you don't understand what you're doing or why, you won't get very far with it. In the absence of a good teacher, I would get as many reputable instruction/method books as you can and read them all thoroughly.

I've been playing for 17 years, and had my share of plateaus, but these days I can't wait to get home and practice, and I feel like I get better every time I pick up a guitar, even if its in a very small way.


I think this is partly because I am in a band again, and writing riffs and songs that will actually get played live. So I'm eager to make these songs awesome, then to take a break from working on songs, I'll just solo over something for a while for fun/technique.


Also, I recently quit drinking and smoking, so I have been channeling a lot of restless energy into the guitar.


I still feel the thrill, but I feel it more often when I have a sick drummer behind me and strangers in front of me.


I highly recommend the book Zen Guitar , it may sound a bit cheesy at times, but it really helps you to have a positive and practical attitude, and to forget about competitiveness and wankery and gear lust and other things that get in the way of you getting better. It also helped me realize that there is no such thing as 'the best'. He describes playing as a path with no end, and our goal is to always walk forward on it. Some people sit down on the path, others lose the way...

You could practice just tapping out rhythms with your fingers on the desk to start with, in time to a metronome or drum beat. Accent the first beat, then practice accenting different beats. Obviously, you have to continuously listen to the metronome, and correct your tapping if you get out of time. Being able to get back into time is something you need to practice and improve.

Don't worry about forgetting pieces you've learnt - it's a fact of life. Once you have a piece as good as it'll get, make a recording for posterity and move on. You can keep pieces as part of your "repertoire" if you want, but you'll still need to work on them from time to time, and to be honest it gets boring keeping pieces you've already learnt in maintenance mode. So learn new stuff.

It's hard to recommend pieces since I don't really know your level, I started a long time ago, and I'm not a teacher. Like I mentioned, Hanon Part I is good as an exercise (kind of alternative to scales - use for warming up). Something like First Lessons in Bach seems to have good reviews. If you just want an individual piece, try "Prelude in C Major" - you should recognize it. Good luck.

Don't mention it! My pleasure. What helps with the feet in keeping swing time is, learning how to feather the bass drum. It's extremely common in jazz, especially with cats like Joe Morello, Max Roach, and Jimmy Cobb. Even at the faster tempos, they feathered the bass drum a lot of times. Feathering, if you're not familiar, is pretty much keeping time on the downbeats very, very quietly. Make the pulse be more "felt, not heard".

They actually have bass drum pedal beaters that are designed for this sort of purpose. Check out the Vater Vintage Bomber beater. Here it is:

http://drums-percussion.musiciansfriend.com/product/Vater-Vintage-Bomber-Bass-Drum-Beater?sku=446667

Also, if you want a couple of GREAT books to check out, I recommend these:

John Riley - The Art of Bop Drumming
http://www.amazon.com/Drumming-Book-Manhattan-Music-Publications/dp/089898890X/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1301166520&sr=8-3

Jim Chapin - Advanced Techniques for the Modern Drummer (basically, this will be your best friend)
http://www.amazon.com/Advanced-Techniques-Modern-Drummer-Coordinating/dp/0757995403/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1301166610&sr=1-1

Keep swingin', man! Listen, learn, and absorb. The world of jazz is a wonderful one. Just keep loose, relax, and swing your ass off.

Cheers!

I know more by heart than you do. I also know how to use them.

You should check out The Guitar Grimoire series. This particular book has every mode of every 5, 6, 7, and 8 toned scale in context, in staff and tab, with the scale overview at the beginning of each scale section broken down into how the modes fit together and how they're created with super easy to translate charts and a list of chords each scale and mode works over.

It's tremendously comprehensive, as is the rest of the series. What's more, it directly shows how each example can be used in real music, because the author knows a lot of traditional theory as well as having explored set theory in a more comprehensive way than you have. He's also got books for chords, one for common chord progressions, one for exercises and more. It's a great series and highly recommended.

Edit: OH YEAH! He also relates everything from guitar back to a piano overhead shot so you can see how it lays out on the piano roll, so in a way this single book doubles for both guitar and piano.

It's hard to find stuff on Jazz Theory on Google for sure, much less recommendations for music transcription. I really can't think of a good place to start with regards to the songs you should try to transcribe, but there are books I've used that have plenty of suggested reading/listening listed. Hopefully you don't already know about these...

The Jazz Piano Book by Mark Levine (it can be kind of pricy, here's a link to it on Amazon) which has a whole regimen of listening suggestions in its curriculum, focusing a good amount on jazz harmony, and melodic improvisation.

I learned a lot about jazz chords and voicings from Miracle Voicings by Frank Mantooth. Working through these books will help you understand better how to approach jazz chords, which should help you better conceive of what you're hearing when you try to transcribe them.

EDIT: The book has been republished as Voicings for Jazz Keyboard by Frank Mantooth

They're actually super useful for airy/spacious voicing of common chords. I can give a few 5 note examples with C as the root (transpose to your heart's content):

C6/9: E A D G C
Cmaj7(6/9): B E A D G (this one replaces the high C (root) from the previous with a low B (maj7th) but you can totally do both for a 6 note chord)
Cmaj7(6/9/#11): F# B E A D
C-11: G C F Bb Eb
Csus(9): D G C F Bb


Using less than 5 notes will be more ambiguous but you can totally use this to your advantage. Nothing wrong with using a quartal voicing/structure on top of a standard triad or even just a 3rd and 7th. Pretty useful for dominant chords:

C9: E Bb D G C (obviously the bottom tritone is not quartal but the top 3 notes are)
C9(13): Bb E A D G (I flipped the bottom tritone from the previous example for a more evenly spaced voicing)

Because quartal voicings can be ambiguous they're a great tool for modulating. They can be placid or intense depending on how you employ them. I first got into using them after reading Mantooth's Voicings For Jazz Keyboard. It's not a book directly about quartal voicings but they're used as a kind of basic building block for many of the voicings in the book. Also, McCoy Tyner is a quartal fiend if you're looking for inspiration.

If you want to learn piano, go to amazon and get these 4 books:

1.The Musician’s Way

2.First Lessons in Bach

3. Two and Three Part Inventions

And finally

4. The Well-Tempered Clavier

These books will teach you all you need to know about music. This is how I personally started playing piano. Work through the books in order, as each one builds on top of the other. Once you can play counterpoint excellently you can play pretty much anything else.

In the words of Brahms: “Study Bach. There you will find everything.”

As far as a keyboard goes, I have a Yamaha P-60 and it gets the job done. Just make sure you have weighted keys and 88 and you’re good. Bach’s music doesn’t require a pedal, so you don’t even really need that.

Good luck on your musical journey! To work through all these books will take a life time.

Instructional:

Mel Bay Encyclopedia of Scales, Modes and Melodic Patterns - Everything you need for jazz and beyond.

Any Czerny Book - Simple and fun pieces that don't take a long time to learn and can help a lot with technique.

Any Bach Book - I don't care if you play classical, jazz, pop, whatever; Practicing Bach will make you a better player.


Songbooks:

Maiden Voyage - Great place to start with jazz and get used to play-alongs.

The Jazz Piano Book - Good reference book for expanding your jazz ability.

Piano Classics - Good compilation of some of the more popular classical pieces.

Nice work! I’d recommend an Atari Punk Console next if you want a noise box that can accept CV.

Alternatively take a look at CMOS noise makers, there’s a nice hex inverter chip that will give you 6 square wave oscillators. These types of CMOS/Logic devices are often called Lunettas.

If you want to step up do LMNC’s CEM3340 VCO’s. They work great, I just built 3. Doing his filter and envelope next.

Lastly, shell out the money for the 2nd edition of Nic Collins excellent book Handmade Electronic Music.

https://www.amazon.com/Handmade-Electronic-Music-Hardware-Hacking/dp/0415998735

Yes, it’s worth the money. Especially if you’re coming in to this with zero knowledge of electronics. This book will show you how to do the CMOS stuff, circuit bend, make a 10 step sequencer, plus all kinds of rad “experimental” stuff. It’s money well spent.

Well, it depends how far into it you're looking to get. There are entire college courses on orchestration, i.e. the art of writing for one or more instruments to get a specific sound/effect. On a more basic level, which will work well for many of the ones I linked since they're already quartets, you can just assign parts that fit the range of the instrument - make sure you're transposing them!

http://andrewhugill.com/manuals/ranges/brass.html <- this is a nice chart of the ranges for most common brass instruments, and includes both the written pitch and the sounding pitch. It definitely is written with professional players in mind, though, so on the high and low ends it's a bit... overly generous. If you can spend a few bucks this book is a much better guide, I think, and covers every instrument you'd be likely to come across, ever!

http://www.abrsm.org/forum/lofiversion/index.php/t19096.html <- that's a good read as well, starts to get into some other concerns when writing for brass (like leaving space for breathing, for example).

I don't know what your level of experience is with music in general (or brass in particular), so these might not be a ton of help. Google is your friend. You can find the equivalent of a college education on most any subject you choose, you just might have to dig around a little and get it from multiple sources.

Good luck! Let me know if you have more specific questions, I'm not a masterful arranger but I've done a few charts when we needed something easy to read. A good first step is just to start doing it and learn as you go.

Yes it does, but you would have to study harmony a bit more first. Take lessons or read the excellent 'Harmony and Voice Leading' by Aldwell and Schachter: https://www.amazon.com/Harmony-Voice-Leading-Edward-Aldwell/dp/0495189758

Good luck!

Fretboard Logic is a pretty good place to start in terms of learning how theory applies to the guitar. Guitar Grimoire series is a pretty good reference tool for scales and chords. I'd definitely check out the videos too, the books are pretty much strictly reference but the DVD is pretty thorough in how to actually use it for practice.

Of course you can get pretty much all of this information for free online if you're willing to sift through forums and youtube videos, etc., but if you don't mind shelling out a few bucks these tools really do pack a lot of information into a simple package.

Firstly, I never recommend going to GC for a setup...GC is the WalMart of guitars. Instead, I highly recommend going to your local guitar shop where there are people dedicated to setting up guitars, and do so on a daily basis.

Knobs are usually just 'push on, pull off' toppers, so it is very possible the plastic 'head' of the control knob simply wasnt tight, or the threading on the pot itself was stripped, therefore not gripping that knob as well. If you bought it at GC, it is possible it was a recurring problem since before you bought it.

Note that there is a difference between 'acoustic' buzz (unplugged) and 'electric' buzz (plugged in). It is okay for a little bit of fret buzz on an unplugged electric guitar...this doesn't necessarily mean that the action is poor. However, if that fret buzzing passes through to your amplifier, you need to adjust your action.

Alternatively, if you are getting very terrible buzz, you may need to adjust the bridge itself (where the 'thumbscrews' you mentioned are) and raise the action. It is not very difficult, but if you don't feel confident take it to a guitar tech.

Here is an article going through a setup (albeit slightly more advanced) of a Les Paul guitar.

Here is a basic YouTube video discussing various pieces and how they affect action on a Les Paul.

In this video, Joe Walsh does a pretty decent job explaining the basics of a setup on a Les Paul.

Also keep in mind that thicker strings on a guitar = more tension on the neck.

Don't be afraid of your guitar! You only learn from adjusting it yourself. It can be intimidating at first, but once you do it several times you will feel much more confident. Like I said, don't be shy about taking it to a trained technician at a local guitar store.

I hope this information was helpful.

EDIT
Also, for some quality reading material, check out Dan Erlewine's 'How To Make Your Electric Guitar Play Great'....very useful to have sitting around

In my opinion if you truly are a beginner Bach's inventions wouldn't likely suit your skill level just yet. ^(I'd call myself intermediate level and they still stump me.)

I like Burgmüller's Op. 100 that has 25 easy etudes and start from roughly (ABRMS) grade 2 level and go up to grade 4-5 level (generally regarded as the level of easiest Bach inventions). They're all short pieces but simple enough to learn in one or just a few sittings. I recommend this Edition Peters scan, it has good fingering.

If you want to go with Bach there are a plenty of easier pieces. One good starting place could be First lessons in Bach book that's been recommended in this subreddit before.

A lot of bass players swear by this book and for a good reason too. I personally don't own it, but when I used to take lessons my teacher would use it and my playing improved tremendously. If you wan't to learn why bass is played like it is today, get this book.

As for my listening reccomendations:

Paul McCartney (The Beatles)- the man practically invented pop rock bass playing.

John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin)- you would think that the guy playing in the biggest hard rock band of all time would be rather straightforward, but he could do it all. JPJ came from a studio player and could do jazz, blues, funk, you name it. He and John Bohnam could straight up hold it down.

Geddy Lee (Rush)- Sure Rush is technical and flashy (that's kind of the point) but Geddy Lee is the epitome of power trio bassists. He carries the melody, fills space, holds down time, and sings. At the same time.

Thanks!

Over the years it's faded a bit, but the artist did such a great job. It was supposed to be a Japanese-calligraphy style. Originally it looked like it had very detailed brush strokes that were cool. I really should get it touched up after 15 years.

I got the design from the book 'Zen Guitar' by Philip Sudo. Do yourself a huge favor and get the book. It's a must-have for guitar players. It totally changed the way that I approach music back then.

http://www.amazon.com/Zen-Guitar-Philip-Toshio-Sudo/dp/068483877X

Get a book of music that is maybe a bit above your level, and try to play as much as you can from it. Example: when I was 13, my mom gave me the classic piano library here and I just really wanted to learn a bunch of the songs. The book was way above my level at the time, but I managed to get through a few of them pretty well - I think the first one I learned was The Beautiful Blue Danube. I got really good at reading after playing around in that book.

Another thing is to learn intervals and chords. I am the pianist at my church and I began a habit of reading chords instead of reading each individual note - which was generally how I read before - and my reading has gotten twice as fast.

Edit: added link

I have a Launchpad S and a Mini, and I use the Launchpad95 script with both. It takes some time to learn; I would recommend going through the documentation and getting used to each of the different modes at a time, instead of trying to do everything at once.

The way I've been working is like this: I use the drum sequencer mode to create a few drum clips that I like, mostly based on what I learned from the book Drum Programming: A Complete Guide to Program and Think Like a Drummer.

For other instruments I use the melodic step sequencer. I usually chose a scale depending on my mood, and then I use the random button to create a few patterns, until I find a few that I like. In addition, I also add some chords using the melodic step sequencer, creating some pads for the song.

Once I have enough clips for drums, bass, pads and leads I record an arrangement by using the Launchpad in session mode to launch clips. And when I have an arrangement that I'm happy with I'll record the automation of volume and filter parameters on top of it, using a Launch Control.

Ableton and FL Studio especially have a large following, and YouTube tutorials are plentiful (and often very specific to the style of music you're trying to make), so take advantage of those if you end up going with either of those software packages. Also, it seems a lot of USB midi controllers come with lite versions of Ableton, so it might be a good entry point.

You said below you were a drummer, so I'm not sure if this will be as beneficial to you as it was to me, but there's an excellent book on drum programming that I learned several techniques from which apply to pretty much any DAW or hard/soft drum machine you may choose:

http://www.amazon.com/Drum-Programming-Complete-Program-Drummer/dp/0931759544/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1324166524&sr=8-1

It's dated but it's still very applicable to most software you'll end up working with for techno, dubstep, or hip-hop.

If you're into Linux at all, I'd also like to plug one of my favorite compositional tools, the Hydrogen drum machine:
http://www.hydrogen-music.org/hcms/

If you have the patience, Harmony & Voice Leading by Aldwell & Schachter, hands down.

It depends on how much of a "Beginner" you are. I went through Music Theory for Dummies before I moved on to the above monster of a textbook. The Shaping of Musical Elements and its second volume are also some recommendations. However, they also require a deal of patience (and possibly a knowledgeable friend/teacher if you'd like your work examined). The aforementioned Laitz book is also a great text worth of perusal.

I wish you the best of luck in your learning ventures!

I got one. It's kind of gimmicky, you'd definitely have to write around the effect. The (intentionally bad?) pitch-tracking will only work semi-reliably on leads. Everything else sounds like glorious glitchy noise. Don't get me wrong, if you want to sound like Lightning Bolt, this thing is right up your alley. As a more traditional effect it sounds like someone spilled beer on your MXR Blue Box.

One of my buddies told me that it's just a pedal version of one of the basic projects from the book Handmade Electronic Music by Nicolas Collins. I never confirmed this.

I have the older version, construction wasn't so good. I let someone borrow it and they fried it (no reverse polarity protection or some shit). I cracked the thing open, and the components were soldered to a hobby breadboard. I never fixed it, it lives in a desk drawer now.

I'm happy to answer any other questions you might have. Keep in mind that I am a synth-player, not a guitar player.

Like blackfiremoose said, Guitar Pro and slow the song down along with turning on the metronome. It will help you immensely. You can look up cover songs on youtube to see how someone else plays too, to get an idea of how to play the song. Use those two together and you'll learn how to play tightly/cleanly.

As far as breaking down technique, it might be better to take a couple lessons. Plenty of metal guitarists offer lessons and will help you one on one. I know for sure that Dave Davidson from Revocation and Reese Scruggs from Havok do them. I also recommend getting The Guitarist's Grimoire. That will teach you all the scales and modes you'll ever need.

Any reason why your teacher is telling you that you have no chance??

For my audition I just played a few drum set grooves (swing, bossa nova, samba, 3/4 swing, and a ballad), sight read a snare drum solo, and sight read a marimba piece. I had already spent a semester in the percussion ensemble (because I originally wanted to be an English major, but after meeting the faculty of both departments I settled on music) so my teacher already knew me and had a good idea of my skill level.

My first semester was mainly rudiments and solos from Cirone's portraits in rhythm. Pretty much snare drum only focusing on building my technique. My next semester I got started on Frank Malabe's Afro-Cuban book and John Riley's Art of Bop Drumming. Beyond that I worked through Riley's Beyond Bop Drumming, Ed Uribe's book on Afro-Cuban drumming, and his book on Brazilian drumming. After that I spent a lot of time working on solo transcriptions, playing pieces that my instructor and I picked out for drums and vibes, jamming with my instructor on vibes or on drum set, and working on pieces that I was writing. By the end at lot of what I was doing was driven by my interests and what I wanted to work on to improve.

As far as the music department as a whole I took your standard history, theory, aural skills, and piano classes, along with tons and tons of ensembles.

Ditto to this...learning Schenkerian analysis is more like learning to play an instrument than learning to use Roman numerals, for example. It's nearly impossible to get good at it without a Jedi master holding your hand, as it were. Most of the noted Schenkerians working today can trace a direct line back to Schenker himself, and it's rare to find someone doing really good Schenkerian analysis today that didn't learn from one of the 2nd-generation Schenkerians. The C&G text is the best out there, but there are very few hard and fast rules with Schenkerian analysis, so it's exceedingly difficult to learn from a book (do, however, avoid the Forte & Gilbert textbook, and absolutely do not attempt to learn Schenkerian analysis by reading Free Composition).

Incidentally, what textbook did you (OP) learn from originally? I'd recommend getting a copy of the Aldwell/Schachter harmony text. Carl Schachter is the most important Schenkerian alive today (he learned from Felix Salzer, who was a student of Schenker's), and this harmony textbook, while not actually Schenkerian, will help a lot in grasping some basic concepts. You might also take a look at Robert Gauldin's textbook, which includes some basic Schenker instruction (if I remember correctly...I don't have a copy handy). There are plenty of us Schenkerians hanging around here in the wings, so we can probably help a lot (and I haven't gotten into a good Schenker argument in a while!).

Firstly, get used to playing swing with the right hand while keeping 2's and 4's steady with your left foot. Once you've got that down, grab a book like Syncopation and practice playing the rhythms on the snare while keeping your right hand and left foot as solid as a rock doing the same thing as before.

I used an Erskine book that does exactly this, but also goes into hand-foot combos, taking it to the next level. It also goes into triplets and such, but that's for when you're good with the basic patterns.

This sets you up for being able to comp using any rhythms you want but keeping your left foot steady on the up beats, essentially the core of jazz drumming.

This is a really condensed explanation, but I hope it helps.

Good Resources to Use

• Drum Concepts and Techniques
  
  
• Syncopation
  
  
• Art of Bop Drumming

OK, I've recommended this book on this subreddit before and will continue to. This book is amazing. Advanced Modern Rock Guitar Improvisation by Jon Finn is pretty spectacular. I took the class that he wrote the book around and it's pretty eye opening. I can't rep a single book harder when it comes to just straight ahead practical rock playing with a solid theoretical background.

After that, Chord Chemistry by Ted Greene is a classic and every guitar player should have a copy.

my favorite book was "Advanced Techniques for the Modern Drummer"

It's been probably 10+ years since I bought that book, and I'll still pull it off the shelf and play through pages.

Another really fun thing to do is to go through the Syncopation book and play the quarter note and eighth note pages with just your left hand and kick drum while playing jazz time with your right hand and hi hat

I'm self taught and I explored anything I could come up with. I like math, therefore a Matrix like webpage inspired me to work on scales.

1+1
http://i.imgur.com/TaN53.png
means 1st of Dorian. The major scale's intervals are known as 1 2 3 4 5 6 7. You'll pretty much see this noted in any scale reference book. The Guitar Grimoire is a good example. http://astore.amazon.com/themachiguita-20/detail/0825821711

The Dorian mode has a flat 3rd and 7th. 1 2 b3 4 5 6 b7

In short, a whole column would go where the red arrow is in the following pic. http://i.imgur.com/KxEb4.png The other columns would go where the other 6 highlighted arrows are.

Therefore, it's best just to learn CoFmachine Chart 1. Same thing.

I'm not sure why everyone is always recomending the How and Tao book.. I have just about every clawhammer book you can get (i can get them for free so why not) and there are much better books out there.

I would suggest either this one or anything by Ken Perlman, maybe this one: or this

the first one is really good for beginners, but you'll quickly outgrow it, but it'll teach you the right hand motion. The second and third are more intermediate to advanced stuff but really really good stuff.

I mean, you can always buy one of the many many instructional books that are out there. Hal Leonard is a pretty well-known company, and it's probably good to have some kind of reference or learning books around for looking things up.

The other thing I'd suggest is basing it around the types of music or songs you want to learn. There's some super basic stuff that you should learn like keeping in tune, knowing the strings, basic open chords, etc; but beyond that it might be worth making a list of decently easy songs you want to learn and what techniques or concepts you'd need to learn to be able to play them.

When I started out (back in 2003 or so) I found a website that had a bunch of beatles tabs, and I learned chords and various types of playing styles to go with the songs I wanted to learn.

You would try taking some online courses from Berklee.

I'd also recommend getting Guitar Pro and dloading plenty of tabs from Ultimate-Guitar.com, since it's much easier than looking for old copies of Guitar for the Practicing Musician and such.

Lessons are good, but beware that you'll be made to concentrate on the fundamentals of music, which many pupils think is not related to playing guitar.

Finally, if you're learning to sight-read, probably good to start at the beginning, such as with the Hal Leonard Guitar Method set of books. If you're interested, I wrote a small python app that writes randomized music based on which notes you choose, so that you can get around the problem of having memorized the notes on the exercises (so that you are actually forced to sight-read). It works quite well, since it creates notation for only the notes you want, and coupled with the method books, is very useful for getting a good sense of sight-reading.

Knowing theory won't really help you create better songs. It will help you understand what's going on in a song and can help you solve many compositional problems for arrangements. But that's not the same thing.

I'm not trying to dissuade you, I'm a theory geek myself. But I do want to convey what theory will and won't do for you. Having a good ear for melody and a sense of song structure is far more important for making a great song than theory is.

If you want some great theory books, I can heartily recommend the text Tonal Harmony, by Kostka and Payne as well as Harmony and Voice Leading, by Aldwell, Schacter and Cadwallader

While pricey because of their academic audience, these texts avoid much of the confusion rigorous texts demonstrate, particularly with regard to the importance of modes to understanding the relationship between melody and harmony.

For really expanding your understanding of harmony on the guitar, and if you like Jazz, Johnny Smith's "Mel Bay's Complete Johnny Smith Approach to Guitar" is an amazing book, but requires a lot of hard work on the part of the student (not least of which due to Smith's insistance of writing the music in actual pitch using bass and treble cleffs.

Try it out. Dive in, see what works, what doesn't. Back it up with theory. I'm fond of these as resources:

• Principles of Orchestration: http://www.amazon.com/Principles-Orchestration-Dover-Books-Music/dp/0486212661
  
• The Study of Orchestration: http://www.amazon.com/Study-Orchestration-Third-Samuel-Adler/dp/039397572X
  
• Essential Dictionary: http://www.amazon.com/Essential-Dictionary-Orchestration/dp/0739000217
  
• MIDI Orchestration: http://www.amazon.com/Guide-MIDI-Orchestration-4e/dp/0240814134
  
  Find scores you enjoy, and study those. Harmonics, counter-point, instrumentation, melodic structure, and so on. I'm particularly fond of James Newton Howard scores, and Jeff Atmajian's orchestration work on his projects. Like Ravel? Start there and become really intimate with Ravel and his scores and techniques.
  
  That said, I'm also happy to orchestrate something for you. PM'd you.

I learned from a teacher for like 5 years and used a wide variety of texts. The Standard Guitar Method was my preferred series of lesson books, while The Guitar Grimoire is probably the most useful single book if you know how to use it. Cheesy as it may be, a subscription to Guitar World magazine is great because it provides you with fresh material every month, at least some of which will be useful (both in terms of technique and sound). The Alchemical Guitarist was my favorite column back in the day, it provided me with a lot in terms of solo improvisation and theory. It warped my entire approach to the instrument, because I became so much stronger in lead roles.

This book is pretty good. Most of it is about James Jameson, but in the back are loads of his Motown basslines accurately transcribed by some of the top session musicians. Comes with some CDs of them playing the bass lines too. Some of the bass lines are pretty solid, but there's some easy ones in there too.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Standing-Shadows-Motown-Legendary-Jamerson/dp/0881888826/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1527806266&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=james+jamerson+bass&dpPl=1&dpID=61pAjXGCGzL&ref=plSrch

You don't need to know theory to write music. It's certainly useful, but it is by no means a necessity. You probably know more theory than you realize. There are likely various patterns and things that you recognize as common, you just don't have a name for it. A lot of music theory is just giving names to those things.

If you're looking for a good resource to get you going, I recommend Tom Kolb's Music Theory for Guitarists book. It's basically a crash course on A LOT of theory subjects. It's far from the most in depth look at any of the topics involved, but it does a great job of immediately relating everything to the guitar.

I also recommend Rikky Rooksby's How to Write Songs On Guitar. This book is a flat out classic of guitar and songwriting instruction.

First off, you don't have to spend a fortune to get decent gear, we are in the golden age of cheap, decent gear. I would look at the Squire CV or VM line, both are really great instruments for the price. If fenders aren't your thing Ibanez also makes some really good entry level stuff.

As far as learning, nothing you have learned so far is a waste as long as you build on it. I would start out just getting used to playing the bass, both physically and then once the bass feels natural in your hands and you think about playing bass lines instead of guitar lines when you are playing, dive into jazz as a bass player.

The Evolving Bassist is one of the books that I see commonly reccomended to beginning jazz bassists.

Welcome. :)

You'll hear "Get a teacher." on this sub a lot. This is great advice, but not always possible. That being said, check the FAQs for some really great resources for sheet music, online learning tools, and general tips and tricks.

I'd recommend getting a method book, such as Alfred's, a classical composer's 'beginner's' collections or notebooks, such as Bartok's Mikrokosmos or First Lessons in Bach, and then grab a book of scales such as this.

For future reference, if you do get a chance, please get a teacher, especially if you can swing it sometime in your first year, even if just for a few months. They can help prevent poor technique that may come up and can save time in the long run.

Edit: For poor hyperlinking on mobile.

Based on the description of your Strat, it sounds like it has the vintage 7.25" fretboard radius. String bending, especially in the higher registers, is know to be problematic on that fretboard radius for exactly the reasons you describe.

Essentially, you need to do a proper setup to try and lessen the problems you're describing. If you're unfamiliar, doing a setup on a Strat involves adjusting things like the truss rod for neck relief, the bridge/claws to determine how you want your tremolo setup, the action, the intonation, and the nut. In essence, everything that your strings touch that can affect how they function mechanically.

You can learn how to do this yourself even if you have no experience. Dan Erlewine has a great book to tackle just this sort of stuff called How to Make Your Electric Guitar Play Great and you can snag a used copy on Amazon for the price of a new set of strings, practically. StewMac, the company where he works and that sells supplies for guitar building, has also started releasing some very helpful YouTube videos on different aspects of the setup. You can also poke around r/Luthier for any tips you can find there (though there's a lot of shorthand that would be tough for a beginner to get into).

My advice to you would be to buy the book, read it over a weekend (it doesn't take long to get from cover to cover), buy a few tools to get the job done and learn how to setup your own guitars so you'll always be able to make sure they're in perfect playing condition and won't have to rely on your local Guitar Center.

Basic tools you'd need include either a pre-assemlbed kit if you want to go the expensive route or a few of the individual components from elsewhere:

• My advice would be to get the StewMac String Action Gauge (it's worth it going for this specific brand name here since it's higher quality and has better makrings than the ones you'll find on Amazon),
  
• Some small screwdrivers and wrenches that'll fit what you need (again, this set from StewMac is pricey but it's very good for its purposes, you can certianly find all the hex wrenches, etc elsewhere for less) if you don't have them,
  
• Some radius gauges (here's the set I have)
  
• A straightedge (not necessary, since you can use a string on the guitar and calipers or even an old guitar string to measure relief--but the straightedge does make things a lot easier)
  
  If you can install a stereo, hang a picture and put together a puzzle, you can set up your own guitar.

Yes to all of that.

You will want this Dan Erlewine book.

And this Dan Erlewine book.

You can make DIY fret files using a feeler gauges, like this.

A strobe tuner for best results.

A nice steel ruler.

Assorted screw drivers and mini-screw drivers.

Powdered graphite or "nut sauce" lubricant.

Clear nail polish and super glue.

Appropriately sized deep sockets and a "thumb wheel" socket driver.

Fret refinishing is the only place, IMO, that requires actual dedicated tools, but there are guys who DIY that as well.

I got the StewMac 3-in-1 fret file for crowning.

I still haven't decided if I will DIY or purchase something like the Nut Seating Files for when I make bone nuts for everything.

I use a set of diamond sharpening plates from HF to touch up flatten and a HF 19" Flooring Level (sorry no HF link, they don't seem to carry it any longer)and some strips of 220 sandpaper sticky glued to that straight edge to do fret leveling.

Chord Chemistry is a great book. It's my guitar bible. I'm always coming back to it. It was written by one of the best guitar players ever, Ted Greene.

I've heard The Advancing Guitarist is quite good but I've not read it.
One last suggestion. If you can find a book called SuperChops by another legendary player (Howard Roberts) you'll be set. It's a great 20 week course that'll take your playing to new levels. Howard was one heck of a jazz player, teacher and nice fella. It's out of print (now) so it may be a struggle to get a copy but once you do...hold onto it.

It would help if we knew more about your own level of knowledge too. For instance I could recommend Schoenberg's Theory of Harmony or Levine's Jazz Piano Book but those books expect a lot out of their readers, so you may be better off with simpler books.

One book I liked a lot was Carl Humphries The Piano Handbook. It doesn't assume you know much and goes over a lot of material without a lot of depth. It might be a good starting point. It has something to say about pretty much every musical style from 1400 to today.

EDIT: I just reread your post and see you already have the piano handbook.

As a six-month player you probably need to work on physical technique more than anything. And you'll need a teacher for that. :( Can you find one to even meet once a month for 30 minutes?

Great points. For radius, I got a set of stewmac metal under-string ones as a gift; an even better idea for most would be picking up this great book, which actually has a set of plastic radius gauges included.

For tuners, also true. Biggest protip there is probably checking your hole measurements before you buy replacements, I'll never make that mistake. Again. :/

That's a pretty clever use of that book, thanks for sharing.
I was doing exercises from Jim Chapin's "Advanced Techniques for the Modern Drummer" with a similar mentality, rotating which limb got which part. Butch Norton has a similar series of articles on independence and limb rotation. Really really cool stuff.

The whole major=happy/minor=sad is too simplistic and too black & white in my opinion. I think it's just an easy way to describe it when your starting out with music. Of course minor has more dissonance since the third is closer to the (unstable) 2nd/super tonic and the major third neighbours the perfect fourth, which gives the feeling of moving towards a stable sound. But there are still plenty of happy songs in minor and vice versa.

I found the book Harmony and Voice Leading to have some interesting info about this discussion.

Thanks! The most robust book I can think of off the top of my head is Pumping Nylon. It's a great publication with loads of exercises.

Having said that, if you have the patience the most enjoyable way is to learn classical pieces. I understand that sheet music is hurdle (or deterrent) for lots of folks. I used to sit down with a legend for standard notation and mostly rely on the ear!

Find a good book, well reviewed by the community. A good reference text will have all the concepts you need to know, on at least a high level, all right there within the pages. Once you build a foundation from that, learning more complex topics will be easier.

E.G. I know nothing about making music hardware, and I read a random comment of someone recommending this book (http://www.amazon.com/Handmade-Electronic-Music-Hardware-Hacking/dp/0415998735). I saw that the book had great reviews, so I bought it.

It's just easier to read a damn book than google stuff sometimes, especially when you dont even know what you should be googling!

The Art Of Bop Drumming is really good to learn some jazz beats and helps alot with independence. I don´t know of any books that are better than others for Tool songs but I would recommend trying to play some of their songs or play with a metronome to odd time signatures. Hope this helps.

The Art of Bop Dumming by Jon Riley

Progressive Steps to Syncopation by Ted Reed

Jazz Drum Studio by John Pickering

Buy any or all three of these. Perfect place to start. And start listening to a lot of jazz. Good luck, dude. Jazz is great.

I'll tell you something - the online lessons didn't work for me at all. I bought this book (http://www.amazon.com/Clawhammer-Style-Banjo-Ken-Perlman/dp/0931759331/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1333467612&sr=8-2) and made it a chapter or two in. Then I went to Africa for six months, took my banjo and what little knowledge I had formed a jam group. I learned more from doing that than anything else. That said, invest in this book: http://www.amazon.com/Parking-Lot-Pickers-Songbook-Banjo/dp/0786674911/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1333467621&sr=8-4

I got it as a gift, and it's awesome. There aren't a lot of clawhammer songbooks out there, but this one has most of the popular songs in melody-only tab, so you can pick them any way you want. It's the single most useful book I've ever looked at in trying to learn banjo.

It'll be difficult to schlep your instrument unless you are otherwise travelling very light (and you have a light and compact case), especially if you will be flying a lot, since the violin would take the place of your carry-on bag (and I don't know your baggage situation).

If you would like to self-study music theory, I would strongly recommend either of these textbooks:

• Aldwell and Schachter, Harmony and Voice Leading
  
  
• Steve Laitz, The Complete Musician
  
  The Schachter book is the old standard that is still in use at many conservatories; it was especially prevalent in east-coast conservatories, where Schenkerian analysis was in vogue. Many schools seem to be switching to the Laitz textbook (it's spreading from my alma mater, the Eastman School of Music Theory), I'm not altogether sure as to why, but they are both fantastic resources.
  
  I would also suggest considering self-study in music history, the textbook by Grout would be a great starting point.

Ted Greene's Chord Chemistry

For chordal stuff, he is one of the absolute greats and I cannot recommend him enough. This book contains pages and pages of shapes for every type of chord you can think of, but also goes on to teach you how you can apply them and reharmonise from a guitar point of view.

His website with lots of free lessons and chord melody tunes. You can get the gist of his stuff here. The book has also got all hand written chord boxes like the stuff on his site.

Example of his playing

Tommy Emmanuel talking about the book Bitches love Tommy Emmanuel.

This is the best book on the subject and really got me far in creating original circuits: My copy is as dog-eared and bookmarked as could be.

Nicolas Collins
Handmade Electronic Music: The Art of Hardware Hacking

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0415998735/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_t1_57MCAbAZ0WC52

More than hacking and mods, really gets into playing with ICs and such.

Have fun.

Pure theory alone will not improve your technique on any instrument, but will enable you to understand the mechanics of the music being played, and communicate it to another musician. You might consider applying your knowledge to extended chords and harmonies available in Jazz. Books by the following would be useful:

• Mickey Baker - Book 1 and Book 2;
  
  
• Ted Greene;
  
  
• Mick Goodrick;
  
  
• Frank Gambale - Book 1 and Book 2
  
  ---
  An answer with useful music theory resources that I gave recently:
  
  https://www.reddit.com/r/Guitar/comments/4h5i2y/question_which_book_should_i_read_to_understand/d2njtxs

I was prepared not to like this guy .. for several reasons .. most of them with your interpretation/flavoring of your opinion about the guy and "if" I learn his stuff I'll be liberating myself. It felt a little pretentious and put me on-guard.

However having given it a listen - I do like it - and I thank you for pointing him out.

I will say that I don't think the only avenue to liberating yourself as a guitar player is to learn to play this guys stuff.

For me there were two keys to liberating myself on guitar .. the first was when I was a teen my mother would come home drunk/stoned at 3 AM with whomever she had picked up at the bar and blast her stereo .. on a school night.

I had a Peavey Bandit 65 and a low endTokai japanese $100 guitar but I would open it all the way up and just play whatever my rage spoke to me - and at the end I would yell "BIIIIIIITTTTCCCHHHHHHHH!" at the top of my lungs.

Usually after 2-3 verses of my rage inspired performance the music from the stereo downstairs would stop.

The other key came much later (perhaps 25 years or so later) which was getting a book called Zen Guitar. I had been in a bit of a rut, and I being older and self sufficient I was no longer "inspired" by my mother's antics I was looking to expand my skills and stumbled on that book and bought it on impulse. I personally think it did a lot more for me than any music theory book I could have purchased.

See to me - the music that impresses me the most .. is the music that has an incredibly unique voice.

The opposite of that of course is "pop music" - which, to me, often sounds formulaic and vapid.

So in Zen Guitar I finally forgot entirely about chords and progressions and what sounded right and started playing in a completely exploratory way .. and that's how I liberated myself the second time. Which has stuck with me as it doesn't depend on someone else to exist :-)

Anyhow .. thanks for the recommend - sorry for the long winded reply.

How to Write Songs on Guitar by Rikky Rooksby

I don’t know if that’s what you’re looking for, but it’s mostly about chord progressions. I have the keyboard one and it’s pretty good basics. I thinking some practical application (songwriting) will help you understand theory learning on your instrument.

Well...point being don't overcomplicate it I guess. There are many good books about writing lyrics, definitely read one. It will at least give you all the mechanics of writing and good tips on writing in general.

This is one of the ones I have read that I found really helpful: http://www.amazon.com/How-To-Write-Songs-Guitar/dp/0879309423

Second if you are writing in a group it's exponentially more difficult than alone. For one thing it's hard to communicate a full vision for lyrics or a song until some sort of tipping point. Actually this is true of anything creative, so it might be better, if you are in a group to get at least a bit written ahead of time before collaborating. Also you absolutely need to just say upfront, this is gonna be corny and awkward as hell. In fact writing parody or joke songs is so easy cause you are detached from the emotion of it a bit. In real lyrics I suppose this isn't the case and so if you think of something you think is great others may not agree and feelings get hurt. Gotta get over this quick or you will get nowhere fast.

Disclaimer: I am not a professional musician, I have no songs written that are even worth sharing but I do collaborate with people creatively a lot. I have done a lot of improvised jams with lyrics and stuff to try and write but I should say that probably any professionals opinion would be better than mine.

I've been reading this book, because it covers theory, piano, and learning to read music, which are all things I'm trying to learn

https://www.amazon.com/Piano-Handbook-Complete-Guide-Mastering/dp/0879307277

If you want a book that's focused just on theory, there's Music Theory for Dummies which I've read, it's a very easy introductory book. For more advanced books I'm not sure, I usually just look at reviews on Amazon to try to find something that looks good.

I've also tried to read "The Jazz Theory Book"

https://www.amazon.com/Jazz-Theory-Book-Mark-Levine/dp/1883217040/ref=sr_1_28?ie=UTF8&qid=1486656226&sr=8-28&keywords=music+theory

but it's way above my current skill level. You might be able to get something out of it though.

Also check out this page, it's actually pretty good. I had forgotten to mention it

http://www.tobyrush.com/theorypages/index.html

Try books. They tend to be more focused on sequence and scope of information. While you may get some of the same info online, the manner in which a text will present it adds significant value.
here're two i've liked: http://www.amazon.com/Guitarists-Chords-The-Foundation-Melodic-Soloing/dp/1423483219/ref=pd_sim_b_4?ie=UTF8&refRID=1P4KMJPFH2RW2XY8WK6K

http://www.amazon.com/How-Write-Songs-Guitar-Revised/dp/0879309423/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1411569974&sr=1-1&keywords=write+songs+on+guitar

have fun.

I always recommend dropping $25 on this book.

It's an easy read, and gives you a great understanding of intonation, string height, truss rod adjustments, etc. The more you know about your instrument, the better you can make it suit your needs.

My suggestion is to learn on your own, and if you choose to go to college, pursue a major that has more profitable career options. Minor in music theory and invest your free time in practicing your instrument. Here is a reading list I recommend to start getting into serious music study and guitar playing:

• William Leavitt's Modern Method for Guitar - all three. buy it on amazon, this is your guitar bible
  
• Chord Chemistry by Ted Greene
  
• The Advancing Guitarist by Mick Goodrick - Seriously one of the best practice guides around. It is light on content, but explains how to practice and challenge yourself.
  
• A Real Book, for reading practice
  
• Tonal Harmony by Kostka
  
• Materials and Techniques of 20th Century Music, by Kostka
  
• The above books by Kostka will cover most of the theory content in the general undergraduate requirements for U.S. music programs
  
• Elementary Training for Musicians, Paul Hindemith - Very good book, particularly work on the sight reading material
  
• Progressive Sight Singing One of the most important skills for a well rounded musician
  
• Paul Gilbert's Terrifying Guitar Trip - Out of place with the above, but easily the best technical guide to guitar playing I have ever found. Even applicable if you don't want to play rock guitar.
  
  That was a fucking wall of text. Hopefully I didn't come off like a negative asshole or bore you to death. If you have any questions or complaints, let me know!

Rudiments, and a metronome are great suggestions.
Id recommend getting going on some sight reading too.


Here are a couple great books I used starting out:
Progressive Steps to Syncopation for the Modern Drummer -I still use this one regularly 20 years later. It's a classic.
The Art of Bop Drumming


Here's a great list from Modern Drummer of some other good instructional books. YouTube is great, but don't forget the basics.
https://www.moderndrummer.com/2013/04/25-timeless-drum-books/

There's a pretty ancient book about programming drum machines by one Ray F. Badness called "Drum Programming: A Complete Guide to Program and Think Like a Drummer" http://www.amazon.com/Drum-Programming-Complete-Program-Drummer/dp/0931759544/

While it obviously doesn't go into the specifics of modern EDM genres (it's a little dated), it is a pretty solid grounding on the basics of beat programming which should leave you in a better position to analyze the kinds of beats you're looking to replicate.

The books I recommend for guitarists and musicians aren't so much instructional as they are tomes of wisdom.

The first is Zen Guitar, which is helpful in shaping your attitude towards playing guitar, improving, and interacting with others.

The other is The Music Lesson by Victor Wooten. Kind of new-agey, but also a ton of advice that isn't really taught in instruction books.

If you're just looking for instructional books, however, William Leavitt's books are good, as are Troy Stetina's books.

https://www.amazon.ca/Modern-Walking-Bass-Technique-Richmond/dp/9995982447

This is a great book. It's based on 12 bar blues in several different keys and gradually introduces more concepts. It's a great place to start and will also help if you're new to sight reading.

https://www.amazon.com/Evolving-Bassist-Millennium-Comprehensive-Developing/dp/0967601509

This one too

I use this book to teach all of my students how to read. Then I supplement with some basic sheet music I create of a popular song that they like that they use to help them sightread the melody. :)

Buy this book and start working through it. By the time you get to the end, you'll be at least decent! Bach is an amazing place for beginners to start.

Also, get a teacher if you can. At least for a few lessons to make sure you don't develop any bad habits. As a self-taught guitarist of many years, I understand the feeling that you can teach yourself without any help. I made this mistake of playing for about a month before seeking a teacher, and although I made a large amount of progress, I also ingrained a few very bad habits that were hard to shake.

Good luck!

I came up learning before the internet was big (like pre high speed where video wasn't a super viable option, and content wasn't so much in regular people's hands) and spent a lot of time reading books, articles, and message boards.

Dan Erlewine became my biggest teacher in books and This book was my bible for a while.

I originally started getting into it after getting the third degree by a mom-and-pop shop when I brought a bass in for repair that I didn't buy there, but when my friends in school would see the things I was doing, they'd ask me to work on their stuff too.

Been a while since I've actually had to wrench on anything guitar wise, but I still keep up with some of the new stuff coming out and browse new catalogs when I get them in the mail.

Edit: I also had the first edition of this book and it seemed to be more related to guys who play and are just getting into working on their own stuff.

This is definitely not a rule for how to write music now, just a rule for how to write music in the style of Bach/Mozart/Beethoven/Haydn etc. If you're interested in Tonal (read: Common Practice) Harmony, here are a few good theory books used in Freshman/Sophomore college music curriculums (in my order of preference):

The Complete Musician


Techniques and Materials of Music


Harmony and Voice Leading


Tonal Harmony

I'm also a composer, and I tend to write more modally (and sometimes without a strict tonality), so I just teach these, I don't necessarily follow them in my own writing.

I think I know what you mean. I have been playing for 3 months, for the past month I have played maybe 2 or 3 days of the week for less than an hour a day. It's not because I don't have the time, I could play 6+ hours if I really wanted to. I sure did when I first started playing.

I don't think I'm losing interest in guitar because I have been reading books, watching videos and browsing forums related to guitar. I think I'm just feeling down and downright lazy as fuck right now. It might be that I'm afraid of playing because I know I'll put myself down when I can't play something right.

That said, I have been reading the book Zen Guitar. It gives an interesting outlook on how you should approach playing guitar.

Try this publication: http://www.amazon.com/Drumming-Book-Manhattan-Music-Publications/dp/089898890X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1333522711&sr=8-2

Jazz is where it's at, especially when it comes to training your non-dominant hand. In the book, you'll learn keeping time with your dominant hand, and developing independence with your non-dominant hand.. along with jazz beats.

Worked for me. Now able to apply the independence gained from studying the book to all kinds of music that I want to play

Also, rudiments.

I would recommend reading.

​

The Dance Music Manual. The producer (Rick Snowman) who wrote it has some solid credentials. Its presents the knowledge in a very approachable format and will give you a whole overview from construction of drums/melody/harmony to mixing to mastering.

​

For drums you'll want Drum Programming by Ray F Badness. This book will teach you how to create drum progressions that catch attention and don't get boring.

​

For synthesis, read SOS's Synth Secrets. Its free, and if you read it and try it out on a synth in your daw, you'll be well on your way to synthetic mastery.

Pumping Nylon is a terrific finger exercise book for left hand and right hand, which I think translates well to all guitar styles.

I'm pretty sure this is the book I'm referring to.

http://www.amazon.com/Advanced-Techniques-Modern-Drummer-Independence/dp/0757995403/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1394506238&sr=8-1&keywords=advanced+techniques+for+the+modern+drummer

Thanks for calling that other one out though, I'm going to go check that out! Chapin writes some good stuff.

I posted this question just as I started reading Standing in the Shadows of Motown and this exercise is one of the first things you play. I've been looking through some of the first transcriptions ("Uptight", "I'd be a Fool Right Now") and can now see the connection to the exercise. He really works the scale in his bass parts, hitting on not just the root and V but also the vi and vii to 'bring it home'.

Great stuff. Thanks all for the replies!

Might be a voice-leading thing, might be a case of your use of inversions being a bit haphazard.

For less haphazard use of inversions, hit the theory books and may God have mercy on your soul.
For voice-leading you could try:

"Tendency Tones and Functional Dissonances"
"Tonal Degrees and Degree Tendencies"
"Advanced Music Theory Lesson 2: Scale Tendencies"

TBH the clearest explanation I've seen is in Harmony and Voice Leading (unless you're flush with cash just buy a 2nd-hand copy of an older edition - music theory hasn't changed that much since 1988 - you'll save yourself a small fortune). And that book will also teach you about inversions, chord progressions, sequences, &c albeit in Classical style. You'll need to be able to read bass & treble clef.

C13 question. Root, 3rd, 7th and 13th are enough. You can add other stuff as well if you like. See /u/lasercrusters post for additional details.

Jim Chapin's Advanced Technique for the Modern Drummer is a must have for learning independence. Also, learn your rudiments. Get a copy of Alan Dawson's Rudimental Ritual and work the hell out of it. Charley Wilcoxon's Advanced Swing Solos is a great practical application of rudiments as well. These books are tough but if you take them slow at first, little by little you will figure them out and build up your chops. Finally, listen to and watch a lot of jazz drummers. Find your favorites and get your hands on everything they ever recorded. Play with the records to help develop your musical sense.

I know the contest is over... but if your friend is really into guitar:

http://www.amazon.com/Chord-Chemistry-Ted-Greene/dp/0898986966/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1368203141&sr=8-1&keywords=ted+greene

It's a book that guitar legends like Tommy Emmanuel recommends. Here's a clip of Tommy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lbvSBNLLoo

Well, besides getting a teacher, there are a number of books/resources you could get. The problem is that you have holes in your knowledge from not playing so long, and no one knows what exactly you do know and what you don't, so there's no one place to "dive in". You may want to start with the more beginner resources and just skim through the parts you think you already know.

You might want to get a piano method book, which will guide you through beginner concepts to more advanced in a logical fashion. Pianoworld Discussion

Here's a popular beginner method book which is mentioned in the above thread: Alfred's All-in-one Adult Course.

Or if you want a more comprehensive reference that covers a LOT more in one book, a lot of people like this: Piano Handbook: Complete Guide.... But read the lower-starred reviews to see why many people think it's not necessarily a good book for a beginner to use.

See our FAQ links under What to practice for the pianopractice.org link and music theory links and more (You'll want a good grounding in music theory to start learning jazz piano).

Our FAQ has lots of links on getting started with Jazz, and there's an extra link in my comment here:
http://www.reddit.com/r/piano/comments/1kbs7u/best_youtube_videos_for_learning_jazz_piano/

I'd highly suggest this book

A lot of the charts are kinda hard to read, but there's a ton of great songs ('Darling Dear', 'For Once In My Life', 'What's Going On' to name a few), music to practice a long to, and a couple little exercises as well

Music Theory for Dummies is great if you're just starting, and continues to be a good reference, especially if you don't have a musical background. Also, this might help with drums.

I just bought Voicings for Jazz Piano By Frank Mantooth. My jazz friends highly recommended it to me. I'm still waiting for it in the mail but I checked out some ideas from it from my buddy. Seemed like the good stuff to me.

If you're looking for help writing songs and coming up with riffs, I would highly recommend How to Write Songs on Guitar by Rikky Rooksby. It covers so much more than other songwriting books, and I haven't been able to find anything that even comes close to it.

http://www.amazon.com/How-To-Write-Songs-Guitar/dp/0879309423

Also, take a look at the musician's institute books. IMO, they have been consistently putting out the best books.

http://www.halleonard.com/promo/promo.do?promotion=230001&subsiteid=7

You may find this book to be helpful. There is a free PDF of it on the internet as well, I believe.

You may also want to have a look at Renoise, which is what Venetian Snares uses to program his music. Aphex Twin has also used tracker programs for years, and I'm certain that is one of the many secrets to his complex drum patterns.

I've Enjoyed:

http://vicfirth.com/40-essential-rudiments/ - this is a good place to start imo, all you need is a practice pad and a pair of sticks.

http://www.snarescience.com/index.php - some crazy difficult Drum Corps stuff on here.

Realistic Rock - rock based rhythms. Decent book.

Art of Bop Drumming - I'm currently in the process of learning to play jazz, and I couldn't imagine a better starting point.


I've heard great things about:

Stick Control - many people would suggest you start here, it's a classic.

Chart Topping Drum Beats - this looks like a fantastic place to start learning reading music for drum set.

Jojo Mayer's Secret Weapons Part 1 - goes over hand technique.

Jojo Mayer's Secret Weapons II - covers foot technique.

The Drumset Musician - covers many different styles.

As for videos, Drumeo has a Youtube channel with plenty of quality information.

My personal opinion on hand / foot technique is watch a variety of lessons / other drummers and just find what works for you.

While I do love Vic and Jaco, I think that Standing in the Shadows of Motown should be required reading for anyone serious about playing the bass. I bought it 5 or 6 years ago and still play out of it all the time. Completely changed the way I play and view the bass

The guitar grimiore really opened my mind to music theory for the guitar.
http://www.amazon.com/books/dp/0825821711
It has charts for scales that you will never need and the opening chapters go over music theory in a really dry and simple fashion. I found mine at a used book store. The best thing about it is understanding intervals by mainly focusing on half steps. This book isn't good for other instruments. But if you stick to the charts you get a real good feel for how these arrangements of intervals sound AND good muscle memory practice for your fingers.

Lots of great books out there. I don't see anything for classical guitar on your list, but I highly recommend The Christpher Parkening Guitar Method Volume 1, and Volume 2, as well as [Pumping Nylon: The Classical Guitarist's Technique Handbook] (http://www.amazon.com/Pumping-Nylon-Classical-Guitarists-Technique/dp/088284721X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1416410512&sr=1-1&keywords=pumping+nylon+by+scott+tennant) by Scott Tennant.

If I may suggest a book along these lines, I have gotten way more use from this book than I ever expected to. It's not really about how to write songs (or even on guitar), it's more about how all these notes and chords fit together, and work together. Goes over dozens of different chord progressions (and lists popular songs so you can easily identify it in your head), chord substitutions, that kind of thing. Highly, highly recommended.

I've tried a bunch of books and the best one I've found is Ken Perlman's Clawhammer Style Banjo, which I see recommended pretty often. https://www.amazon.com/Clawhammer-Style-Banjo-Ken-Perlman/dp/0931759331

I used YouTube videos until I could get the motion down, now I'm learning via the book.

I have a book or two I would like to give away but I don't know anybody who would want or need them. Definitely would like to give it to somebody who wants it: one is "The Piano Handbook" and the other is a laminated, spiral-bound edition of the WTC.

http://www.amazon.com/Haskell-Harr-Drum-Method-Orchestra/dp/1423420268
http://www.amazon.com/Advanced-Techniques-For-Modern-Drummer/dp/0757995403
http://www.amazon.com/International-Drum-Rudiments-Book-CD/dp/0739013106
http://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Realistic-Rock-Drum-Method/dp/0897244869

get these books and read them and you will truly learn to beat smith. starts with the hands first then the feet, then the hands and the feet. i live by these books and remember that slower and more accurate practicing is 1000 times more important that fast and sloppy. get solid and have fun swingin.

http://www.amazon.com/Drum-Tuning-comprehensive-guide-tuning/dp/0964465817
this is a stand by too my man

I'm quite surprised that you've come across anything for banjo in standard notation. Outside of the minstrel tutors (which are from the 19th century) I've never seen banjo materials written in anything except tab. Especially for old time, where the so many tunings are used, reading standard is almost useless (unless you want to read out of fiddle books).

Anyway, my favourite resources would be Ken Perlman's Book and Art Rosenbaum's. Rosenbaum's comes with a fantastic CD which makes it worth the price alone. It's not really a beginner book, but it's still a great resource which covers a range of old time styles (clawhammer, 2-finger, and 3-finger)

there's a little tiny book here http://www.amazon.com/Essential-Dictionary-Orchestration-The-Series/dp/0739000217 ... it's really little but addresses the range and sound OFEVERYINSTRUMENTEVER. good luck

Yep! If I may suggest a fantastic book to help you along:

Clawhammer Style Banjo https://www.amazon.com/dp/0931759331?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

I think the Hal Leonard Guitar Method book is really good. I was in the same boat... took several years off and wanted to pick it up again. I thought the book was great for helping me get back into sight-reading and remembering my notes/frets/scales. Definitely simple at the beginning if you've played before, but it's a solid review.

I've seen someone recommend this, and it looks pretty good. And I'll go ahead and throw some Ted Greene out there.

I don't know if you're interested, but you can DIY a simple line input mixer for about $10.. maybe $20 if you wanted volume pots. There's probably a few tutorials online, if not this book has a great section;

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Handmade-Electronic-Music-Hardware-Hacking/dp/0415998735/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1412272132&sr=1-2&keywords=circuit+bending

As far as you want to go.

If you focus and practice consistently, this is an extremely good book: The Piano Handbook


After practicing for a year, I'm only about halfway through it but already receive lots of praise on my technique and improvements from when I first started. Learning on your own is tough and that book ain't easy, but it will take you very, very far.

Read Zen Guitar.


Listen to OnBeing with Krista Tippett and Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend .


Dig into your Why? with gentleness and love.

I would suggest the Guitar Grimoire for learning scales. It is the most complete scale book for guitar that I've found.

Getting into playing songs is pretty simple. Find some songs that you enjoy and look for tabs on Ultimate Guitar. Tremolo picking isn't too hard- just alternate pick as fast as you can.

Hey there. While it is not exactly "online", I can only recommend to spend some money for this book:

https://www.amazon.com/Guitar-Grimoire-Compendium-Formulas-Scales/dp/0825821711

I did buy this about 3 years ago when I also wanted to go more into theory, understand why scales are there, why Chords are in the shape they are etc, and this book is full of answers.
It helped me alot in understanding why I do stuff, which helps alot if you want to Play at a Jamsession or just with other musicians. Knowing why you do what or why a chord works with another chord/Scale opens the world for experimenting with this and making your very own music.

The book is not really "theory for dummies" simple, however if you are able to put a bit patience in it, and read it carefully, it will open a new world, and stuff will make sence that you currently have not even noticed its there.

A truly awesome book !


Amazon Link

I just got back into piano after years of not playing. I bought this book: The Library of Piano Classics and I have really enjoyed it so far. There's a mix of difficulty, with some really well known songs and others I wasn't familiar with, ranging from Bach to the 20th century. I am really happy with it and considering getting the sequel.

Zen Guitar is a great guitar philosophy book that is an easy read.

General practice and exercise: Bass Fitness

Theory, technique, ideas and concepts: The Evolving Bassist, Bass Method: Volumes 1, 2, and 3

Fun, interesting reads: 101 Bass Tips, Standing in the Shadows of Motown, The Music Lesson

https://www.amazon.com/Library-Piano-Classics-Music-Sales/dp/0825611113/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1502164626&sr=8-1&keywords=library+of+piano+classics

Great deal. Has tons of popular classical pieces.

Pasted from a similar thread:

I've recommended this to others in a similar situation: http://www.amazon.com/Piano-Handbook-Complete-Guide-Mastering/dp/0879307277

Also here is some pretty easy stuff, most have MIDI tracks to listen to first: http://www.gmajormusictheory.org/Freebies/freebies.html

Rufus Reid's book on bass is an excellent source for breaking down walking lines: https://www.amazon.com/Evolving-Bassist-Rufus-Reid/dp/0967601509.

I always tell students to find recordings of lines they connect with and enjoy and then transcribe those. You get a three-for-one lesson if you transcribe yourself from the album. You learn the actual line, train your ear to hear the intervals, and inadvertently pickup on the oh so important subtleties of the style.

Ted Greene - Chord Chemistry

The best chord theory resource out there in my opinion. There is a reason it's been around for over 30 years and people are still referencing it.

It's not free, but $12.49 isn't a lot for the knowledge you'll gain.

There are a couple of great books by Dan Erlewine, "The Guitar Player Repair Guide" and "How To Make Your Electric Guitar Play Great".

These two books would be a good start.

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https://www.amazon.com/Ray-Browns-Bass-Method-Excercises/dp/0793594561

https://www.amazon.com/Evolving-Bassist-Millennium-Comprehensive-Developing/dp/0967601509/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=the+evolving+bassist&qid=1573349247&s=books&sr=1-1

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Also lots of jazz students have this book which would be good.

https://www.amazon.com/Jazz-Theory-Book-Mark-Levine/dp/1883217040/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=mark+levine+jazz+piano&qid=1573349459&s=books&sr=1-2

Ah memories. Yep I started with How to Play rock'n'roll drums, Syncopation and this book way back in the early 90's. Then later on went to Advanced Techniques, Future Sounds and The New Breed for different permutations and limb independence. And 'trying' to pick apart and play Dave Weckl's Island Magic.

Does anyone else remember those drum solos like calypso eclipsed and aint it rich?

Lines are: EGBDF

Spaces are: FACE

BOOM!

Something like Hal Leonard Guitar method may be useful because even though it is their beginning guitar book, everything is in standard notation. No tab to fall back on. So even if you've been playing a while, you'll start right off with this dot on the staff = this string/fret. I have the epub version that has the audio embedded in the file, so I can click on the staff on my ipad and it will play. The printed version I think all the audio tracks are online.

Some of the more common ones for guitar are the 120 studies for right hand development by Giuliani, the 20 Sor studies (segovia), the melodic and progressive etudes by carcassi, and the Segovia scales (even though they are pretty useless IMO). There is also Pumping Nylon by scott tenant as well as Brouwer's Estudios Sencillos and Nuevos Estudios Sencillos if you are looking for something more contemporary.

How to Make Your Electric Guitar Play Great - By Dan Erlewine
http://www.amazon.com/Make-Your-Electric-Guitar-Great/dp/0879309989/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1416407578&sr=1-1&keywords=dan+erlewine

This is a great reference for setups How to Make Your Electric Guitar Play Great I just got kindle on my phone and bought it for $10. It has general factory setups and setup of some famous players.

That's the one on the cover of the Guitar Grimoire Scales and Modes.

If you ever want a theory book that's got way more information than you'll probably ever use or even digest but also looks impressive to guitar nerd guests that you have over I highly recommend it.

I started off with the basic root position chords then memorizing inversions. After that, I got a book which explained spreading the chord voicings in fourths.

https://www.amazon.com/Voicings-Jazz-Keyboard-Frank-Mantooth/dp/0793534852/ref=sr_1_1?crid=VF7QSM6YMBC1&keywords=frank+mantooth+jazz+piano+voicings&qid=1555623986&s=gateway&sprefix=frank+mant%2Caps%2C185&sr=8-1

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Took me awhile to memorize this, so treat it like a gym work out.

After that, I studied open chord voicings, and this is the "formula" I like to follow. Apply this to the major/minor/dominant qualities.

1 7 3 5 - 1 (melody note)

1 5 3 7 - 3

1 5 7 3 - 5

1 5 7 3 - 7

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I practiced them chromatically, diatonically, 4ths/5ths, in intervals then I set up a flashcard app that cycles through the chromatic scale (randomly) labeled Root, 3rd, 5th, 7th then I would voice those notes accordingly. When all this becomes muscle memory you can start deciding where you want to insert additional tensions.

THEN after all these, it starts getting easier to take a jazz standard and decide what voicings you want to use.

You want this:

http://www.amazon.com/How-To-Write-Songs-Guitar/dp/0879309423

It's shows you all the formulas with none of the bullshit. If you spend six months working through the chapters you will be able to write songs.

It's the best beginners music book I've come across in 25 years of music.

What a glorious time for you! If you haven't already check out nic collins book this was a big help as I moved beyond bending. Unfortunately, we lost Ray Wilson last year, but Music From Outer Space remains a tremendous resource, his make book is good too..