How Good is Music Theory for the Guitarist?

"you are holding in your hands a unique book - a complete music theory method designed specifically for guitarists. While there are many music theory books on the market, most focus on the piano keyboard and the grand staff. In Music Theory for the Guitarist, every concept, exercise, and musical example is guitar-specific."

I'm no guitarist so reading this book as a novice gives me a good insight into how well Tom Kolb gets his ideas across.

The Chapters are as follows:

Chapter 1: The Fretboard

Chapter 2: Theory Basics

Chapter 3: Scales and Key Signatures

Chapter 4: Intervals

Chapter 5: Triads

Chapter 6: Harmonizing the Major Scale

Chapter 7: Chord Construction

Chapter 8: Harmonizing the Minor Scale

Chapter 9: Determining Key Centers

Chapter 10: Blues Harmony and Pentatonic Scales

Chapter 11: Modes and Modal Harmony

Chapter 12: Other Scales and Modes

Chapter 13: Chord Substitution and Reharmonization


The Pros

1. The quizzes are a good idea helping you cement your knowledge of each section, but some are too short.

2. The CD is very well-produced and consists mainly of scales and a few demonstrations of how the theory fits into the music, but I would have liked to have seen more musical examples for the basics at the beginning.

3. Tom Kolb's use of language is good and he doesn't try to impress with a large vocabulary.

4. There are some handy diagrams to help you remember some of the key facts

5. There are also some good tips to make understanding the strange rules of music easier to understand

6. There are some great ear training exercises using the guitar

7. I like how he shows you how learning the theory along with the guitar actually makes understanding the theory a lot easier.

8. He walks you through what chords are used in what types of music; jazz, funk etc.

9. There are extensive chapters on the different chords and how they are used together

10. There is an interesting section (with CD examples) on how different modes of scales are used in pop music

The Cons

1. Right from the start of the book Tom Kolb tells you to refer to other sections of the book to clarify a point. This isn't particularly helpful.

2. He goes through the basics way too fast, and there are not enough examples to help you with your understanding.

3. There are no definitions of the common musical words.

4. Not a very fun way to learn for the beginner, no fun games or challenges to help you on your way.

5. I felt sometimes there was too much explanation and not enough demonstration using the CD or diagrams.

Conclusions

The Music Theory for the Guitarist book is a unique approach to teaching music theory and overall I think Tom Kolb has done a great job. The text covers a huge amount and as long as you make sure you get each concept, it's an invaluable guide.

One of the best ways to learn anything is to have the tools for the job (a guitar in this case) to hand and to use that tool to help you learn the new subject. So in this book, music theory has been approached from an entirely new angle and I think it's been successfully accomplished. My only reservation is that the fundamentals are skipped over and without those it can all become very confusing.

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