Customer Reviews

Music Theory For Dummies, with Audio CD-ROM

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I ordered this book with some skepticism. I could read music before I go this book but I guess at a very rudimentary level. I have looked through other music theory books and have been left a little bewildered about musical keys, cord construction and such. This book demystifies these and many other musical concepts. I now understand musical keys and many other things that had always seemed very mysterious to me. The book starts off very basically and slowly advances as it introduces you to more advanced concepts by adding more information about how music is constructed. Someone with a firmer background in music may be board by the pace but for others of us it is just right. I recommend it if, like me, you always wanted to understand music but never found someone who could describe it in an understandable way.

I'm 48, and I've been playing guitar, bass, keyboards and a lot of other instruments since I was 12. Two of them well, all of them by ear. I didn't have a clue what to call anything I did, aside from knowing when I was playing a major, a minor, a 7th or a 9th. But only because better players told me so. Having found some success in other areas with other books in the Dummies franchise, I took a shot at this one.

Turns out I was doing a lot of things right all these years and even being fairly close to correct in the way I described them to my guitar students. Yes, a guy who needs a Dummies book for music teaches kids to play. The nerve, right? Well, I feel a lot better about it now. I'm able to give my students some theory with their Green Day, and using the same matter-of-fact way of describing and discussing it as I found in the book, it gets across quite nicely. I'd bought a different book on music theory that was supposed to be very simple. In fact, it seemed extremely short and unintimidating... at first. Shortest book I ever failed to complete. THIS book, on the other hand, clocks in at 330-some pages and it never bogs down. They stay with a topic instead of flying past it without making sure you are ready to move on. In my opinion, that's the most important quality a Dummies book should have: a flat-out refusal to leave any reader in the dust. I appreciate that. Now if the same authors will just do a MIDI For Dummies book, aaaaand maybe books for Studio-In-A-Box 24Track Digital Recording, Signal Processing, Microphone Techniques, Child Rearing and a few other topics I need help with, life will be complete.

I have to agree with David C. that this book is filled with careless errors. The authors and editor should be ashamed of this sloppy work.

That being said, if you overlook the mistakes (mostly in charts and tables) the book actually does do a good job of explaining music theory. I read "The Idiot's Guide to Music Theory" first, and it left several issues unclear as well as lacking some practical application to keyboard and guitar fretboard positions, but the Dummies book cleared up some of the foggy issues as well as provided some good starter info for guitar scales. The circle of fifths discussion in the "Idiot's" book was practically useless, while the "Dummies" book gave a clear and useful presentation of the topic. If I had to recommend one or the other, I would have to say that this Dummies book does a better job, overall, of getting the ideas across. If you have the inclination, reading both books would provide a more complete introduction to music theory.

By the way, the "Idiot's" book also has its share of errors, but at least the author has posted a table of corrections on his web site. Apparently the authors of the Dummies book just don't give a damn about the mistakes, as I cannot locate any kind of errata or corrections listing for this book.

Music Theory for Dummies is the best of both worlds for those of us interested in learning music theory for the first time or refreshing our musical memories. As a child music student I was inundated with music terms which meant little or nothing to me. I faked my way along, despite my ignorance of proper theory or terminology, never thinking it might pertain to me. Only as an adult, who has now written a few songs with the desire to share them, has it occurred to me that I need to know how to write music others can read rather than trying to express myself by humming my songs out. Music Theory for Dummies is a necessity for anyone who wants to truly understand the basics of music, or anyone who already does but needs an excellent reference for refresher or support in learning or comprehending the more difficult aspects of music theory. Music Theory for Dummies is essential for all students, be they beginners, or the more advanced, in need of a simplified backup source for more difficult concepts. Additionally, the drawings and CD are simply a delightful topping on a very solid foundation.

Man, this book is exactly what I needed to get back into learning music. I took piano lessons as a kid and again in college, and didn't retain much from the experience except how to count off four-four time. That, and an incredible dislike of structured music lessons. This book starts way at the beginning of note-reading and counting off beats and takes you through to the basics of improvisation and composing your own music. The process is easy and gentle and the information delivered sticks. I remember everything I've read in this, and at no point did I feel like an idiot trying to figure any of the topics out.

The CD is almost worth the price of the book itself, especially if you are a complete beginner. Every major and minor music scale is played out on guitar and piano, and make a great practice aid to play along with. All the chords discussed in the book are played on the piano for you to listen to--which is great, because I didn't know the difference between one 7th chord to the next just by ear, but now I'm learning to.

Also, how cool is it that the book has a short interview with Steve Reich on the composition process in it? I think it's cool, anyway, I'm assuming it's an original interview--had to check and make sure Reich was still alive when I saw that, and voila, he is! There's also a fairly recent interview with the late Robert Moog in it on keyboard design (saw another interview with Moog on-line by one of the authors, so I'm thinking that's original, too). It was a pretty cool way to break up the fairly heavy-duty chapters on chord construction and chord progressions. Overall, this book left me feeling like all my previous experiences with formal music teachers were mostly wasted ones, and that I could have saved myself a lot of time and agony if I had just had this book.

Being an obsessive music listener, music theory is something I have always thought I should know more about, but it's a subject I have never seriously approached before reading this book. The author does a good job of gently leading you through the door, and also introduces more challenging ideas in a readable style. The chapters on building chords and chord progressions gave a nice glimpse into the construction of even quite complex music, something that had previously seemed impenetrable. The examples used were well chosen, and were written without any condescension. As a way to ground the more abstract ideas, I especially appreciated the commentary by modern composers and musicians. Recommended for anyone wanting a good introduction and a solid foundation from which to build.

While I have been a musician for most of my life, I don't know much about music theory (including sight reading). It would be difficult for me to pick my favorite chapter in this book, since I learned something new about music theory in every chapter, but Chapter 10 (Intervals) was probably the biggest bang for the buck in my mind. The later chapters that described the use of the intervals were reinforcement, but the explaination of the qualities of major, minor, diminished, and augmented intervals was a breakthrough for me. Chapter 13 (Building Chords) was almost as valuable to me, since it built on the same concepts.

This is a textbook that I will be referring to for years. I strongly recommend it to anyone who is struggling with music theory.

The book's scope is far too broad for a beginner book. It starts with notes and scales and ends with composing for orchestra. I was really looking for a book that more throughly explained beginner concepts, like what does it mean for something to be written in a certain key, for example. Beginner topics are covered, but in too few pages and in a manner that is a little too abstract for a beginner.

From a person who has always had a love for music, but a limited understanding of how it works, this book was very informative. As a beginner of the piano and acoustic guitar, this book has equipped me with some of the fundamentals of scales, chords, music composition, music reading, as well as helping me with sight reading.

For beginners, this book is a good start to truly learning music and applying it to playing music.

Overall, the book is very good. I've never had music theory but had piano and band as a child and am learning guitar as an adult. The best parts of the book explain a lot of things together (major/minor key signatures and associated sharps/flats, chord realtionships/progressions, scale structures, and so on). Things are seeming to click in the ol' gray matter and I WOULD have given it a "5" for the coverage of the subject matter, BUT...

...there are typos/errors throughout the WHOLE book. There are incorrect references to table numbers (trivial mistakes) and there are errors on a few of the example music measures and, in at least one instance, on guitar notes on a fret chart. The editor of this book did a horrible job. I know enough to say "yeah, that's not right" as I read through the book, but the number of errors is appalling.