I'm working my way through the rather brilliant Garage Band Theory, a very impressive work by Duke Sharp.
Duke claims that his book is "......non Academic, practical, useful theory for living-room pickers and working musicians who want to be able to think coherently about music in order to ask questions and understand answers about the music they want to play."
The review quotes from famous names were enough to get my attention.
“Don’t be put off by this giant book— Duke’s got the secrets of the universe in here. Quite simply, this is the most comprehensive book on music theory I’ve ever seen.” Bill Payne, Little Feat
“Garage Band Theory is a must for any musician.” Rodney Crowell
“Something for every musician at any level. Especially helpful is the musical notation and tablature for a variety of instruments. This book inspires me to learn and practice more.” Sam Bush
I have bought quite a number of books that claim to make learning about the important rudiments that control our music simple (they almost always fail); this is at the same time the most comprehensive as well as the most easy to grasp. The blurb says it gives us 'Tools the pro's use to play by ear.' And so far, it has delivered.
There are perhaps a couple of slightly confusing things needing cleared up. Number one is that it has nothing whatsoever to do with the music software of the same name. Number two is that it somehow manages to illustrate how professionals play by ear by, and here is the confusing bit, helping the reader understand vitally important elements of musical theory.
It is a mighty resource - six hundred pages of e-Book (a print version is available at an understandably higher cost) with hundreds of examples illustrated in musical notation and TAB (for guitar and mandolin and banjo - and with an impressive back-up of freely available online material, audio files included.
Intrigued? Go to the Amazon listing and click on the 'Look Inside' feature to view the Contents page, which illustrates just how comprehensive Duke Sharp's coverage of his topic is.
For the record: I am very slightly acquainted with Duke Sharp, though we have never met. He spends some time in Thailand, and is a friend of a friend. He did not ask me to talk about his book. I do that because I am very, very impressed by a genuinely useful learning resource that he has put a huge amount of work into.
ron mcmillan
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