My favourite book on music theory is 'Songwriting Secrets of The Beatles' by Dominic Pedler. The title doesn't do it justice. It's a magnificent treatise on music theory and song writing using the Beatles songs as examples. If you're a Beatles fan like me, it's a must read!
Richard Lloyd (formerly the guitarist for the proto-punk band Television) has a few great lessons on YouTube that teach theory and the circle of fifths very effectively:
While these tools are useful, I recommend oldschool hard copy books to get started properly, if you're relatively serious about it. There are some great books for guitar put out by Berklee, I don't recall the names right now, but I do remember a series that had 4 books from intro to advanced.
I spent a lot of years learning guitar technique while not progressing much on the music theory side until I started reading Mark Levine's Jazz theory book. It's probably the best material on music theory I've read, though it's slightly based on jazz, or at least references it a lot. But I think you could use it as a general theory guide.
Another favorite of mine is Yusef Lateef's Chord and Melodic Patterns book, though it's more advanced/exploratory.
Levine is a great resource, but music theory, and jazz theory in particular, is a super dense subject. Having an experienced teacher to guide you through and help you internalize it is very valuable, even if it's only for the occasional lesson.
Definitely agree about the teacher bit, if you can find a decent one, or can afford it. I find that sitting in or jamming, or even playing over standards is really helpful just to get things going. You have to remember that a lot of the jazz greats of the 20th century had little to no formal music education, let alone the complexities of jazz theory.
Another perspective: Jazz pianist here. I looked at Mark Levine's book when I was in my early/mid 20s, by then I already knew everything in it - and I'd learnt almost all of it from the music, from the greats. I don't believe in (theory) books, or teachers, really. I don't wish I'd read that book before I knew any of it.
I played classical for years as a kid, then played any songs I could get my hands on - folk songs, pop, Beatles etc. So I learnt basic chords and how they work by playing that stuff a lot. Then when I got into jazz, you learn by listening and transcribing. Transcribing tunes, solos, chord voicings, anything. All different instruments. I've transcribed piano, trumpet, sax, guitar, bass, drums.. and Indian classical, funk, reggae etc. Anything you hear and like but don't know what it is, transcribe it, and learn to play it yourself. (If it's simple enough, you don't need to write it out) You learn a lot of things by doing that. There are books of transcribed solos, I think they're absolutely worthless. Do it yourself. Besides that, books of songs, solos etc always have mistakes, sometimes a few, sometimes thousands. I've written out orchestral scores to play on piano, studied those. I studied/played/sang Debussy's opera for over a year, that felt like a complete musical education, a lot of it is simple combinations of notes. In my 20s I learnt a lot about what pianos can do by playing a lot of piano pieces by Debussy, Ravel, Rachmaninov etc. Also playing other instruments is good - I've spent a fair bit of time playing drums, bass, guitar, trumpet, trombone, clarinet, etc. Also learning who the great musicians are is invaluable, so you can find who appeals to you most. Check out a lot of different stuff. Study, analyze, learn from the music you listen to and love. All that is so much easier since the internet! (I started in the 80s) It should all be a great joy. I enjoyed every minute of it.
I'd recommend the Hook Theory "books" (there are two volumes). I put the word book in quotes because they are available as both interactive ebooks, i.e., Kindle & iBook, and mobile applications, i.e., iOS & Android.
The authors do a nice job of introducing basic (and then advanced) music theory concepts with text and audio/video examples using recognizable pop songs. They also have some tools for exploring themes further on their website.
I've read the books a couple times and it has given me the ability to reason about existing songs as well as better compose and improvise with songs myself.
Got quite a collection of intro books, but nothing on theory really. I had hand surgery on my frett hand a few months ago and still do physical therapy twice a week - just now getting some strength back so while I recover, trying to learn more music theory since my practice sessions are limited by a screwed up hand. I tell ya what though, practicing guitar is better than most of my PT exercises :)
That's alright, I've had to relearn my technique after a coma. It's easier the second time around. I really recommend doing legato exercises to strengthen the fretting-hand. Look up any neoclassical shred guitar book and they should have some guitar acrobatic exercise on legato. A good one is the Frank Gambale warmup instructoinal video. Another is a Paganini for guitar book put out by Greg Howe in the 90s if I recall correctly. I had a lot of fun learning the 24 caprices from that book.
Definitely agree about the guitar practice being better than PT part. :)
Martino is perhaps my favorite guitar player and musician of all time. Was listening to his new record Formidable just earlier today! I'm familiar with his story although for him it was a brain/memory thing. While I retained all my theory/knowledge I had to train my muscle memory all over again. In his case, he had all the muscle memory but couldn't remember ever knowing how to play at all. I recall that he started learning again by listening to his own records!
I'd recommend learning theory concepts removed from the guitar, at least initially.
https://www.musictheory.net/lessons will pretty much teach you what you'd learn in two years at university. Honestly, I find it the best resource to get up to speed on common practice period music theory.
I'd agree. For beginners, Guitar Dashboard is probably overkill. I really wrote it for people like me, who'd been playing guitar for a while and know all the basic chords, but want to get deeper into the underlying theory.
The basic idea: fret a string on one of the indicated spots in the diagram, pluck a string. Then pick another one, and do the same thing; now you have a melody starting.
Moving on: divide that pattern into interlocking "boxes", and memorize the fingering pattern for each box, and how it dovetails with the adjacent boxes.
Some boxes have a transition where there are two notes per string; this is good for staying in a tight position, without much finger stretch. Three-note-per-string boxes are good for shredding.
If you have this overall pattern memorized and well rehearsed under your fingers, you can easily improvise to most music (at least that with Western roots around diatonic scales). Listen to the track and play a few notes by ear. Within a bar or two, it's obvious which pattern you are in and from there you know the rest of the picture instantly, and can "break out" all over the fretboard.
If you like playing electric guitar, then Rocksmith should be part of your learning tools. Much more fun imho than any of the other methods, well except for being part of an actual rock-band.
What most articles and books I've read on the subject recommend: Learn to strum with rhythm. Learn the scales. Learn the chords. Play things that let you have fun, even while nailing down the basics.
The best ones I have read take it a little closer to the guitar: "Learn the freboard" Learn why the freboard is the way it is, why it is tuned the way it is, why no one for hundreds of years has been able to come up with a better tuning system -- then learning rhythm, chords and scales will be a bonus side effect. The very excellent book "Fretboard Logic" takes this approach
Not to disagree with your points, but a brief aside you made me think of:
The fretboard in its current incarnation works well for western music, at the cost of being quite poor at playing for middle-eastern and eastern music.
There have been attempts to address this with microtonal fretboards (which are complicated), but most often they use fretless necks (which are available for guitars and basses).
So, as with all things, the fretboard evolved in a route that favored local optimizations.
