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Hi Keith-
Glad you asked about the book! Entitled Play Guitar By Ear, it's an old-school paper-and-ink book with a CD, and it focuses on the process of playing by ear: how does someone make those "by-ear" choices when figuring out a piece of music? It is NOT just a "beginner's book," but rather a book for exploring at any level of musicianship.You can read all about it and order it from my web site. Click on www.thecoyote.org and go to "Writing" for a full description.
As far as rhythm study goes, I've checked out a lot of books, the titles of some of which will escape me... But the Starer book is good, except I feel it gets into odd and compound time signatures too quickly and doesn't provide enough repetitive and support material for what's in it. Also, as I recall, it has a lot of stuff on "conducting," which is becoming a rather esoteric skill. I keep the Louis Bellson/Gil Breines book, Modern Reading Text in 4/4 Time, around for sheer quantity of rhythmic figures, but it has this peculiar point around page 17 or so where it jumps from relatively simple figures (mostly 8th note rhythms) to wacky mixes of 16ths and eighth-note triplets. It does that throughout the book. There's a book from the Musicians Institute that is decent, but it uses the same exact exercises three or four times in a row, and uses a rather inefficient checklist approach to covering material.
I am pretty deep into the rhythm thing for three reasons that come immediately to mind: 1) I've been teaching for a l-o-n-g time now, and I find that rhythmic skill is often a student's weakest point, followed closely by reading rhythms. 2) I find that. for my own study, tackling rhythmic permutations and imposing rhythmic patterns on melodic and harmonic material is just a blast. 3) I think the world could use a good all-purpose rhythm book, and maybe I'm the one to write it.
So I would love to hear from any of you about any rhythm books you found useful, or any instructors you might have worked with who really lit up your understanding of rhythm, or any experiences with great players who had a strong sense of rhythm.
Best,
"Life! Life!
Clouds and clowns!
You don't have to come down!"
- Sly and the Family Stone
Clouds and clowns!
You don't have to come down!"
- Sly and the Family Stone
----- Original Message -----From: KeithSent: Thursday, August 17, 2006 6:05 PMSubject: Re: [TGC] LearningDouglas (Doug?)
I'm interested in hearing about it. Is there a link to it on your
website? Is it an e-book, or the old-school, paper-and-ink variety?
Also, I'd be interested to hear your recommendations for rhythm study.
I don't know of a book that deconstructs and analyzes rhythm, unless
you're thinking of something like Robert Starer.
Keith
--- In The-Guitar-Cafe@yahoogroups. , Douglas Baldwin <coyotelk@..com .>
wrote:
>
> Hey Crew-
> I don't want to turn this into a "buy my product" forum, but did
I mention my first book is out? Let me know if you're curious,
otherwise I won't go blabbing about it.
> dB
>
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