(Part 3) Reddit mentions: The best music instruction & study books

http://www.scottsbasslessons.com

This was one of my first books. It starts off fairly easy, but gets moving pretty quick.

This is the Tao Te Ching of bass.

This was one of the books that helped get my technique to where it is today. I'm not sure if the new version has all of the same exercises.

Always read notation. Tab becomes a crutch, and the quicker you learn notation, the more you'll use it, and the better you'll get at it. It's a skill, it's frustrating at first, but it's worth it.

This is my favourite Music Theory book.

Transcribe music. Not only learn how to play it by ear, but learn how to write it down as well. It's really hard at first, but it's probably the best thing you can do to learn to jam, interact with other players, and communicate your ideas to anyone at any level.

Want Chops?

Find a qualified bass teacher in your area. Don't go to that guy who plays guitar and teaches bass on the side and only uses tab because he's never had to read. It may not seem like it, but there are differences in technique that an experienced bass player/teacher would know that a guitar player may not. Find a teacher that pushes you every lesson and makes you want to sit in a chair for hours working on technique, transcribing, and listening.

On top of getting an instructor, scour the internet for every piece of information you can get. At first you'll get some bad advice, but you'll find that there is a lot of great information out there. Always test the boundaries of what you're being taught by anyone with the information you're absorbing for where ever you're getting it. One of the best teachers that I had said "If you're teacher tells you there's only one way to do something, it's time to find another teacher".

I'll give you more great advice from a different teacher. He was this old grizzled player that played Jazz before, and after, Jazz was cool. He said:

"There are only three things you need to do to be a successful musician. One: Show up. If you show up every time you're going to be ahead of 95% of the rest of the musicians out there. That means every lesson, every rehearsal, every gig, every time.

Two: Know your parts. If you show up every time, on time, and know what you're supposed to play, you're going to be ahead of 99% of the players out there.

Thirdly: Play your heart out. If you show up, on time, know what you're playing, and love what you're playing, no matter what it is you're playing, then you're going to be in that 1% of musicians that actually get steady gigs."

Have Fun.

I posted this in our still-being-created FAQ, hope it helps!

----

I always recommend Robert Gauldin's books on 16th- and 18th-century counterpoint, mostly because they're just what I used as an undergrad. I realize there are others out there that are just as good, but I do think Gauldin is extremely smart and knows what he's talking about.

I've also used Evan Jones's book on modal counterpoint. It's newer so not as time-tested, but it seems like a nice book. It quotes some passages directly from Fux's Gradus where they are relevant, which is nice.

Speaking of which, I don't recommend learning straight from Fux's Gradus. It was written nearly 300 years ago (in 1725) and you are not its target audience! It's an extremely important treatise in relation to the history of music theory and music in general, but it is not flawless and there are other books written with a more updated style of pedagogy that will be easier to learn from. Feel free to read Fux to supplement your work, but I would not make it my primary text.

Turning now to species counterpoint, I'd like to plug what I think is a fascinating book for academics and beginners alike: Counterpoint in Composition by Carl Schachter and Felix Salzer, two brilliant minds in music theory. The book does teach some counterpoint, but what I think the interesting part is is where they relate counterpoint to "free composition"—i.e., pieces by Beethoven, Brahms, and others who were not literally writing species counterpoint, but composing freely. Every student I've assigned readings to from this text has loved the readings and it encouraged them to keep working at counterpoint since the relationship to "real music" became that much more tangible after reading this book.

I nearly responded yesterday but I didn't want to seem like I should be an authoritative source. My advice may be bad and crippling me and I just don't know it. But since someone chimed in with sentiments that echo my own, maybe this will help?

I just turned 30 recently and am now coming up on the one year mark learning violin (while raising an infant!) so take what I have to say with a profound grain of salt - I have little to no idea what I'm talking about. My only background in music was a course in college that covered intro and basic theory so I'm starting basically from zero.

I've bought Essential Elements, All for Strings, the Doflein Method, ABCs for Violin, Wohlfahrt Easiest Elementary Method, I Can Read Music, Suzuki 1 and a few books geared for instructors to teach. What I find is the more methodical the better I like the book.

ABCs for Violin is arguably the best overall. It contains a DVD which I didn't find that helpful compared to my teacher, and generally starts with basic exercises in preparation for a given piece or series of pieces and seems to introduce things fairly evenly. I wish it were a bit more methodical but the music is much more accessible than some of the others. So far I've enjoyed Ode to Joy, New World theme, London Bridge, Home on the Range, and O Come All Ye Faithful.

Doflein or Wohfahrt are much more methodical and introduce things very systematically and introduce 4th finger use almost immediately - which makes sense to me as an adult with medium to large hands. Doflein seems to focus on duets to help improve playing and is very progression and practice oriented but the music is generally older tunes that are unrecognizable which makes learning to play them more difficult even though I've learned some I liked. Doflein and ABCs are the basic books my teacher is using with me; aside from glancing through Wohlfahrt and playing the first few pages of exercises I haven't gone through it much but expect it suffers from the same issues as Doflein.

Essential Elements I liked and it has the ability to download the music off the website but it takes a really long time to introduce 4th finger. By that point (I started on my own) my teacher noticed I'd already developed a bad 4th finger habit and my teacher thought it was too easy and dismissed it; All for Strings met a similar fate.

I Can Read Music for Violin I only picked up later after I was struggling with rhythm problems and my teacher had copied a couple pages of exercises for me to work on. If you are really new to reading music this might be okay and basically alternates one page for fingering/tone and the next page for rhythm.

Suzuki I won't comment on as I've only looked through it but never really used it. After researching it for a few days and comparing it against what I know about learning physical skills I just didn't feel that it would be the best way for me to learn - I can't follow the logic that created it. It has been used by millions worldwide and quite a few swear by it, and it is definitely accessible because of it.

I'm mid-20s. Bought a violin three years ago. Played it for three months maybe 3 hours a week. Stopped. Picked it up 8 months later for a couple months playing for maybe 2 hours a week. Stopped. Currently in a very settled place and playing 2 hours a day and have done so for the past month and half. Making huge strides. Can now play most of the tunes in this book. Not all of them well, but I can slog through them, which is more than I ever thought when I started out.

Even though I've started and stopped a bit, it's been totally worth it. I started with the perspective that every new note was a new challenge. With practice, I was overcoming a new challenge every couple days, feeling successful every couple practice sessions. It was great momentum to keep me going, focusing on these small successes.

And I think the kinds of goals one sets are incredibly important in this way. Long term goal for me is to be proficient enough to head to Ireland and join in some pub jams by summer of next year. Which isn't too lofty, but just high enough to be challenging. Intermediate goals: be able to play with my eyes closed, learn how to shift, learn low 1st finger, vibrato, some minor scales (and the rest of the major ones). My advice: ask yourself why you want to play, then set an attainable long term goal that you'll enjoy pursuing and achieving; something emotionally satisfying that you can envision. For me, that's seeing myself in a smoky corner playing with other musicians in a Dublin pub, and hearing the crowd sing or stomp along; being a part of that tradition and community. Once you have your big goal, find easier short term goals along the way, i.e. placing your third finger without looking with 80% accuracy or playing a Dmajor scale. That way every week you'll feel you've learned something and after a few months you'll make huge strides!

No, that book is also more of a textbook. By method book I mean like a book that is aimed to educate, not to inform. That other book by Levine is also great to have on your cupboard, but it is also very, VERY heavy. This is the book I was referring to:

https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Jazz-Keyboard-Method-Beginning-ebook/dp/B004L9MFNQ/

Although a lot of the stuff is pianistically oriented, I will reiterate 2 things. First, if your goal is to compose, so many midi controllers are keyboards that it is probably worth learning to voice chords on keyboard. Second, you can just skip the pianistic stuff and focus on the theory. In this case it is a good thing that the book is less comprehensive - it's less to deal with.

Your classical background will definitely help, but be warned - the world of jazz harmony is much, much bigger.

I have also heard good things about this book:

https://www.amazon.com/Berklee-Book-Jazz-Harmony-ebook/dp/B07C96QCLB/

Regarding Barry Harris's theory, I don't remember where I first read about it. But it's somewhat simple. We already established that dominant chords a tritone function similarly. Well, we also know that a dominant chord can resolve to the relative minor of the chord it is resolving to. So C7 can go to Dmin7. Well, what else can go to Dmin7? A7. And the tritone substitution of A7 is Eb7. That gives us a family of 4 dominant chords that all function similarly - two that set up an expectation to the relative minor, and subvert it, and two that function normally.

Yes, your last point is also correct. By default we throw 9s on almost every single chord. So our default voicing for G7sus4 is 4-7-9.

EDIT: Also, you can definitely do it :) It's never too late to learn. Also, learning piano will get you a lot faster at voice leading. This is huge in writing compositions quickly.

If you have the budget for it, there's always grabbing one of the many theory/aural skills textbooks and doing some of their self-tests. This is one of the textbooks we used for my aural training class, and it comes with a CD that has a ton of listening examples; I think all of them except the quizzes have an answer key in the book, so that can be good for self-testing.

The Kostka textbook also has a workbook with some exercises - see this review for some critiques of that textbook series, but if you're using it for self-practice as opposed to first-time learning, I think it would be okay and it does cover a pretty broad base of topics for studying.

Of course, as someone else pointed out, musictheory.net and teoria.com are also good online resources for a lot of this stuff as well, so check out those self-tests. I also agree that grabbing music on IMSLP can be really good practice that's easy to access. In addition to Bach, try looking at some of Mozart's piano works, since those tend to be fairly straightforward but offer a slightly different texture for identifying harmonies.

Otherwise, I mean - I think most of these topics are things that fall into "the more you do it, the better you'll get" category, so I would just encourage you to immerse yourself in whatever music you're participating in, and focus on these topics. When you have downtime in a rehearsal - analyze. When you're waiting for a bus/picking up your kid/dinner to finish cooking - analyze. Listening to music on the radio - analyze. You get the idea. :) The more you build it into your life and the music you're actually doing, the more relevant it feels and the better you'll learn it.

I had a few stages in learning how to be a guitar tech. First, I learned a ton of the basics from my guitar teacher, how to set intonation, adjust string height, etc. I learned a bunch more by reading online, then finally I got a job at a guitar shop. This guy only hired me because I already had previous knowledge and experience, even though it wasn't THAT much. Additionally I was willing to learn.

Before I worked there I had seen the work that my current boss does. I had resolved that he was clearly WAY better than myself, which was only cemented when I broke down and got my Ibanez Xiphos with floating bridge setup by him. I was having trouble setting up floating bridges at the time. After many hours of talking and bs'ing he told me he had a position open and I accepted. I have literally never seen anyone do the quality of work that he (and now myself) does in the shop. Nobody. Not one single person in the entire world that I have come across.

Everything that we do in the shop is based on science and measurable qualities. Nothing happens to a guitar without us knowing about it and everything we do we do for a reason. Some people say that setting up a guitar is an art, which, is only KINDA true. 95% of it is science, the rest is the art, which really only comprises of sanding nuts or acoustic bridges down, as well as a few other things that I'm not going to get into here.

If you want to get into this field just know that SO MUCH information out there is bullshit and mis-information. Its not always easy to tell but one good clue is when someone says it is "good enough" that is usually a good indicator. Also, if something just doesn't seem right, then its probably not.

Some BASIC tools you will need include various size hex wrenches, screwdrivers, nut driver set, ruler accurate to 1/64 of an inch, soldiering iron, but probably most important, a strobe tuner. A strobe tuner is the most accurate kind of tuner you can possibly get. When you are able to set your intonation to incredible amounts of accuracy your guitar resonates way better than if somebody used an el-cheapo tuner. They're not cheap, but definitely worth it. I own a Peterson Strobo-rack tuner. Don't let anybody tell you different. Like I said, some people will tell you "its good enough" no, its not.

Here is the book that my boss has written on the subject:

http://www.amazon.com/Basic-Guitar-Adjustments-Setups-Leonard/dp/0793574668/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1370755713&sr=8-2&keywords=basic+guitar+setups+and+adjustments

This was written a few years ago and we've since altered a few of our practices to be better, but this is still an amazing starting point. If you have any further questions feel free to reply or pm me.

For what it's worth, I'll tell you what I used to teach myself to play sax. Hope you find this information useful.

I already played clarinet since I was a kid, and had wanted to learn to play sax for many years. Finally picked up a used alto a few years ago, and I taught myself the basics entirely from "Play Alto Sax Today!". I bought what they call the Beginner Pack, which comes with a DVD, a book of sheet music (Level 1), and an audio CD -- currently about $15 US on Amazon. It's published by Hal Leonard. Here's a link...

www.amazon.com/Play-Alto-Today-Beginners-Pack/dp/0634052993

I liked the Level 1 package so much that I when I finished working my way through it, I bought the Level 2 book. It's currently about $10 on Amazon...

www.amazon.com/Play-Alto-Sax-Today-Level/dp/0634028928

It's also worthwhile to pick up a cheap electronic metronome (get one that also has a chromatic tuner, maybe $15 or $20 -- Korg has some decent ones). You can find free metronome and tuner programs for computers online, if you don't want to buy one -- as long as you can sit in front of your computer when you practice.

Spend a week or two just practicing with the mouthpiece, without the sax, just to get a workable embouchure and good air support. You want to be able to blow a nice steady concert A (880 Hz), for about 60 seconds or so, before even thinking about putting your sax together.

I saw a good description of correct embouchure on a sax website. Insert mouthpiece, and then try to saying, "EEE" - "YUU" (pronounce like "you"). It's like your lip and face muscles are doing a tug-of-war between the EEE's and the YUU's. You've got the correct embouchure if you let the YUU's win, with the corners of your mouth pushing in against the sides of the mouthpiece. Hope that makes sense!

There are a few really great websites you might want to look at -- Sax on the Web is a great one, as is Best Saxophone Website Ever.

Finally, I'll mention one really great classic book of sax exercises. It's cheap, and it's worth having. It's called "25 Daily Exercises for Saxophone", by H. Klosé. You may very well be able to find a PDF somewhere, but I think it's worth buying.

It sounds like you have a good foundation both in what you have played and your knowledge of tab. I’m assuming that you mean ‘solo’ fingerstyle guitar (just one guitar but no voice) or fingerstyle as accompaniment to singing. In any case, the best place to start is with Travis Picking. More specifically, the styles of “Merle Travis” and “Chet Atkins.” Learning Travis Picking, even if you don’t pursue it, is an essential foundation to everything else you will do. An online program called True Fire (https://truefire.com) is an incredible place to go and is very oriented toward teaching you fingerstyle. Even Tommy Emmanuel teaches there! Beyond that, just listen to others. Listen closely to many pickers of many genres and styles, then pick and choose what you do and don’t like to create your own style. Finally, learn basic music theory (if you haven’t already). Music theory is in my opinion, a very important but often missed aspect of guitar. I wish you good luck, and I hope you found this helpful!

Some supplementary books I would recommend:

For music theory: https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Guide-Modern-Theory-Guitarists/dp/1503319210?keywords=Guitar+music+theory&qid=1540820080&sr=8-6&ref=sr_1_6

For Merle Travis Style: https://www.amazon.com/Mel-Merle-Travis-Guitar-Style/dp/078660266X?crid=1FDIX0PBK0ZS5&keywords=merle+travis+guitar+style&qid=1540819852&sprefix=Merle+Travis+guit%2Caps%2C164&sr=8-1&ref=sr_1_1

For Chet Atkins Style: https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Chet-Atkins-Guitar-Method/dp/0786691476?keywords=Chet+Atkins+method&qid=1540819891&sr=8-1&ref=sr_1_1

There are introduction to music theory books / classes that are designed for people with zero knowledge. I took such a class before I took the serious class. It generally teaches you the most basic stuff like how to understand music staff notation, which is a requirement to use a proper music theory book. You don't have to be a proficient sight reader, but you have to at least know how to figure out what the notes and chords are on the staff. An introductory book will also introduce basic things like the diatonic scale, intervals, key signatures, the circle of fifths etc...The book I used after the first linked one was this. Those are kind of pricey, but if you look for used copies or older edition used copies on Amazon you can frequently find one in near perfect condition for like $20. Read the other comments I added to my original response hehe, as they are pretty important to consider. Those books are designed for class settings, but if you have good reading comprehension, it's possible to do it on your own.

I have been playing in a jazz group for about a year now. I recently bought this Berklee book

It starts at a pretty basic level and gets fairly advanced towards the end - I found the info on soloing to be especially useful. Note, though, there's no Tab in this book - (obligitory comment about encouraging reading)

Also, this book from Hal Leonard is heavier on the excercises with less on the discussion, but has a great wealth of information as well and includes tab.

Hope this helps!

Hmmm your last quote may be a bit revealing about what is giving your trouble. When you open a book written in english do you think 'good grief, how am I going to read all of these letters?' The answer is most likely no and the reason is because you don't read the letters you recognize the shapes of the words that are stored in your vocabulary.

The same thing is going on in ragtime and all other music. You should not be seeing blurs of notes but instead recognizing familiar chords, scales and understanding their harmonic relationships. For example when I look at the first 4 bars of 'Maple Leaf Rag' I see Ab, Eb7, Ab, Eb7 and harmonically I think I, V7, I, V7. Maybe you already do this? But if not then that is going to significantly hold you back.

But wait, there's more. Not only do you have to recognize those chords, scales and harmonic progressions with the same ease that you recognize these english words and their grammar flow but you also have to recognize the rhythm vocabulary and grammar in the same way. Ragtime depends heavily on sixteenth notes and if you find yourself needing to count all the rhythms as they come then you have not done the right home work in preparing to read music. Fortunately this is an easy fix! Did you know there are only 16 possible combinations of 16th note? So then all you need to do is practice each combination in isolation with a metronome, clapping or with drum sticks for a few months until you can look at each one and just understand how it feels. There is a great book by a drummer named Benny Greb called The Language of Drumming that you can use as a guide to this sort of thing.

Hope this helps, let me know if you have any other questions.

tl;dr: Your problem may be that you have not done the right preliminary work, you should be able to recognize the chords, scales, harmonic flow and rhythmic vocabulary as instantaneously as you understand the words and grammar of this sentence.

Most beginner's bass guitar books will teach you what notes lie where on the neck - I used the Bass Bible growing up, and it was such a good training manual that an ex of mine (that I was at the time teaching to play) stole it. That took you through all of the notes in first position, then eventually up to the 12th fret - you won't see notes higher than that very often, and they'll usually be notated "8va" ("play an octave higher than written") telling you to jump up 12 frets.

As far as learning the half about what's on the page, the bible will help a lot, but there's some great advice in this thread aside from my own viewpoint, which is there too. Many other relevant posts exist, going back years. Relevant searches 1, 2, 3, 4 will take you further - there are lots of irrelevant links in there, but almost all of the relevant collective wisdom of the entire community stretching back to its inception lives under those search banners.

Putting page and neck geography together will require a little more patience again, but if you're sensible you'll figure out an approach that works for you where you're progressing both together. This poster might help as a reference, but if you're anywhere near as obsessive as I started out being, then you'll probably know most of the info there before it even arrives.

I’ve had RA for more than 25 years (basically my whole life), and coincidentally began playing piano the same year my symptoms appeared. I became a string player about 6 years later. I have recently quit teaching music in public schools. I’m a string player and no matter how independent my kids were I’d always end up tuning a few instruments every day, many of which were crummy “violin shaped objects” that were extremely difficult to tune. I had hand surgery last year and had to learn to do it differently, and it sucked. I adapted in lots of ways, and my singing got a lot more accurate pitch-wise because I would often sing instead of play in class. Between that and having kids demonstrate things when they were doing really well I managed to avoid a lot of playing.

I still gig and teach privately, but I don’t play on days I really hurt. Sometimes there isn’t any amount of technique modification or perfection that can help. Also, if my fingers are swollen enough I find it difficult to play in tune and accurately, not to mention the pain.I’ve read all of the recommended books for avoiding performance injuries in musicians (Janet Horvath and Nancy Taylor are authors you should check out if you haven’t already), and I’ve spent a lot of time working the tension out of my playing. I had a bunch of little nodules pop up on my fingers in the last year and quite frankly they scared the bejeezus out of me. My rheumatologist suggested that one of them might be due to the way I was holding my baton but due to elbow pain I spent a lot of time teaching my kids to play like chamber musicians and I didn’t wave the stick if I didn’t have to. I think it’s more likely from my bow hold, which I spent years working on and is otherwise comfortable at this point so it’s not going to change. My mom’s hands were in terrible shape the last 15 years of her life, and I’d like to preserve the use of mine for as long as I can. I spent a lot of time in therapy for my left hand post-surgery last year, too.

Leaving public schools has helped with the fatigue aspect of the RA, tremendously. It’s important to remember that autoimmune arthritis isn’t solely a disease of the joints. Fatigue, brain fog, etc are all common symptoms that can be difficult to manage. Unfortunately it wasn’t uncommon for me to pull 12-14 hour days multiple days in a row, and sometimes work 6 or 7 days a week. It was exhausting. Teaching is exhausting, period, but being a music teacher is extra exhausting. I’m planning to go back to school in January for something else because I don’t see myself returning to the classroom.

Anyway I’m glad you found so many ways to adapt and continue to pursue your passion. Good luck to you, and check out those authors if you haven’t already. Nancy Taylor is an incredible musician and also a licensed occupational therapist, so she knows what she’s talking about! Janet Horvath’s book is excellent as well.

Nancy Taylor

Janet Horvath

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.

They're probably pretty expensive - I would recommend something like "Master Theory" which is graded and probably more cost effective like 5-10 bucks a piece.

Check out this:

http://www.theperfectutor.org/Mckinley%20High%20School/master_theory_lessons.htm

You could look for things like that, then post images and ask here if you got them right or not, so you can learn from your mistakes.

Most textbooks have a workbook as well, like so:

https://www.amazon.com/Tonal-Harmony-Audio-Finale-CD-ROM/dp/0072918969/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1538678510&sr=8-4&keywords=workbook+for+tonal+harmony&dpID=41NPYS208XL&preST=_SX218_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch

There are definitely some grooves and certain fills / styles I've picked up on just from being a fan of / listening to / playing pit for musicals, so it's sort of instinctual? BUT! I would say jazz as a genre is fantastic for building improv technique and this book is AMAZING for working on developing / building drum set skills and your own style:

https://www.amazon.com/New-Breed-Systems-Development-Creativity-ebook/dp/B00GQZPZ62

You could get a book on swing/gypsy jazz and start working basic chord /comping sequences which will be mostly the different 7ths but not too many altered/extended chords. Which doesn't mean those are easy to play (especially proper gypsy jazz). This one's pretty good: https://www.amazon.com/Gypsy-Swing-Club-Rhythm-Guitar/dp/0786677724

We used this ear training book and also this sight singing book.

They're both pretty good. The ear training book is great for dictations but you only get the answers for the even numbered ones. The teachers edition has answers for the odd numbered. It's meant to be used in a class environment.

The sight singing book is pretty good too. Works you up on a pretty even curve.