Best Music Theory Exercises
This new edition book and streaming video course is all that you will ever need for learning piano chords, scales, arpeggios, how to read music, and basic music theory! Piano Professor Damon Ferrante guides you through 140 step-by-step lessons (for beginner to advanced levels) and 30 streaming video lessons. Whether you are teaching yourself piano or learning with a music instructor, this book and streaming video course will take your piano playing to a whole new level! Have you always wanted to learn how to play piano scales, chords, and arpeggios, but did not know where to start? Would you like to expand your musical understanding and learn how to play the piano through an affordable, step-by-step book and streaming video course? The book uses clear and logical layout, teaching the beginning student to learn the piano keys and basics of musical notes and rhythms." The Baltimore Sun calls Ferrante's music "focused and colorful...with an unexpected, decidedly poetic touch" and "ebullient and full of shifts of direction." Snow Moon matters now (and does justice to the sonata tradition) for Ferrante's relentless exploration of novel strategies for creating an inhabitable soundscape." Piano Scales, Chords & Arpeggios Lessons is the product of these efforts and is designed for beginner to advanced pianostudents, either learning on their own or working with a teacher.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"It has nice diagrams and pictures to make learning much easier."
"I learn best with written instruction, but watching a video while I practice is really helpful as well."
"I have read other how-to-play books for the piano, but none have been as effective as this one."
"I really appreciate who recommended me this because it allows me learn at my own pace and fully enjoy the experience of playing the piano and not have to worry about paying for private lessons."
"When I first opened up the book to chapter 1 I was able to get right to work. This book is for everyone!!!! I recommend this book to anyone trying to learn piano!!"
"I have never played any kind of instrument but I have always had a desire to play piano and this instructional book makes it very easy for me."
"The book will help you learn how to play piano, but it definitely would need to be paired with a book of songs so that the technique can be applied to the songs in order to actually learn to play more than just some scales. This book could help someone teach themselves how to play piano, but I personally recommend using the book, videos, and having a personal teacher."
"The lessons are easy to follow, the guides help from a variety of different perspectives - crucial for those who learn in different manners from others."
Scales, Chords, Arpeggios & Cadences - COMPLETE book features everything in the BASIC book, plus extra features like a detailed explanation that leads to complete understanding of the fundamentals of major and minor scales, chords, arpeggios, and cadences; a clear explanation of scale degrees; and a guide to fingering the scales and arpeggios.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I wish I had gotten this sooner!"
"Gift for a friend who has picked up on hobby laid down long ago."
"It has all of the good stuff you need to learn-scales, arpeggios, cadences, etc."
"Boring, boring boring, but the most useful book for learning the bare bones of music."
"It really helped me learn musical theory although I was quite new to the piano."
"It didnt have enough chords but had plenty of scales and drills for them."
"Clear and understandable."
Techniques covered include: strumming, fingerstyle, legato and staccato, hammer-ons and pull-offs, slides, bening, damping, vibrato, tremolo and more.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"There are plenty of books out there for beginners and there is a lot of very advanced stuff but not a lot to help players learn to bridge the gap between beginner and expert. With a lot of books that say they are for more advanced players I often start off ok but later get stuck."
"I can say this with some confidence because I've taught hundreds of beginning students to play the ukulele and this book would leave most of them in the dust, discouraged and disheartened. Who this book IS for: players with a firm grasp of the basics, that have a good number of chords already under their belt, have good practicing skills, aren't afraid of standard staff notation and are glad to see it side by side with tablature. That said, I consider myself an intermediate player with a lot of musical knowledge that translates over from other instruments I've learned to play. Also, as a singer/songwriter, it is so nice to be able to pick up new techniques, fingerpicking, strumming, chords, riffs to inspire my own writing."
"I picked up the uke a couple of months ago because I wanted to learn an instrument which was portable and could play both chords and melody. The beauty of this book is that he starts you off with interesting chords, scales and riffs. I'm going to leave my innate desire to move ahead and just do the daily work of mastering each lesson. Pedantic note to non-musicians: learning any instrument means putting in the time."
"This is a really useful book for advanced beginners through intermediate players."
"I've used this book with a group of high school students and it does a great job creating some "bite-sized" exercises that progressive build skills without being overwhelming to the tentative students."
"Just bought the digital version of this book yesterday because it said it had an audio/video file with each lesson.....well that is only on an Ipad or Iphone products or the Kindle Fire."
"I do not use it as prescribed, rather I take sections and practice them over and over, perhaps for weeks before moving on to the next."
Best Music Techniques
This indispensable book for drummers of all types includes hundreds of basic to advanced rhythms and moves through categories of single-beat combinations, triplets, short roll combinations, flam beats, flam triplets and dotted notes, and short roll progressions.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"They don't call it the Drummer's Bible for no reason."
"A must for any drummer for developing stick control whether you play snare drum or timpani."
"My left is catching up to my right very quickly!"
"Yes, I'm begining to use it, practicing the exercises, it will be a lot of fun!!"
"Go through the Bibles of drumming, properly, like everybody else, and you too can get anywhere you want in drumming. Contact me if you want more information on how to study the drums properly."
"Good collection of snare drum exercises."
"And once you start to build up speed, the exercises actually start to sound and feel really cool!!"
"Very professional, good book."
Best Music Songbooks
Titles: * Alouette. * Alpine Melody. * Amazing Grace. * Au Claire de la Lune. * Aunt Rhody. * Auld Lang Syne. * Aura Lee. * The Bandleader. * Beautiful Brown Eyes. * Blow the Man Down! * Largo (Dvorak). * Lavender's Blue. * Lightly Row. * Little Brown Jug. * Liza Jane. * London Bridge. * Lone Star Waltz. * Love Somebody. * Lullaby. * The Marine's Hymn. * Mary Ann. * Merrily We Roll Along. * Mexican Hat Dance. * Michael, Row the Boat Ashore. * Money Can't Buy Everything. * My Fifth. * Ode to Joy. * On Top of Old Smoky. * O Sole Mio. * Raisins and Almonds. * Rock Along. * Rockets. * Rockin' Intervals.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"It took me about 1 1/2 months to work through the book and I rate it as excellent instruction for anyone wanting to learn or re-learn the piano."
"A little background before I get into the real review: My 14 y/o trumpet player daughter has been wanting to learn the piano for years. Her trumpet teacher disagreed and recommended she start with the Suzuki method as she has and incredibly good ear and quite a bit of natural musical talent. I bought this book to help rectify that, knowing that I'll be sitting in on her weekly lessons and absorbing a lot of information there. It's pretty exciting to go from not knowing where middle C is located to playing Jingle Bells with a bit of harmony in 2 days! I do plan on adding scales and such to my practice sessions, as these are truly the things that will help you progress and give you a more fundamental understanding of how music is put together. I feel like I'm able to grasp the concepts that are introduced and will be able to help my daughter along once her lessons start in a couple of weeks."
"No CD, but Youtube is better than the CD anyway."
"So far, helping me learn the piano."
"A little bit hard if you are teaching yourself."
"I love this book!!!"
"This is a wonderful book for adult learners and my instructor agrees with me."
"This is a really great book on beginning piano playing."
Best Music Composition
If you want to take your guitar playing to the next level, compose songs like you hear on the radio, and improvise your own music, then you need Fretboard Theory. Fretboard Theory by Desi Serna teaches music theory for guitar including scales, chords, progressions, modes and more. * Learn pentatonic and major scale patterns as used to play melodies, riffs, solos, and bass lines. * Move beyond basic chords and common barre chords by playing the types of chord inversions and chord voicings used by music's most famous players. * Chart guitar chord progressions and play by numbers like the pros. * Identify correct scales to play over chords and progressions so you can improvise at will. * Create new sounds with music modes and get to know Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian and Locrian. * Add variety to your playing by using intervals such as thirds, fourths, and sixths. * Increase your chord vocabulary by using added chord tones and extensions to play chord types such as major 7, minor 7, sus2, sus4, add9, and more. * Learn how all the different aspects of music fit together to make a great song. * See how theory relates to popular styles of music and familiar songs. Hailed as a “music-theory expert” by Rolling Stone magazine, guitarist Desi Serna is the author of the very popular Fretboard Theory line of guitar instructional material as well as Guitar Theory For Dummies and Guitar Rhythm and Technique For Dummies.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Top notch!"
"I have learned more in 1 hour with this book as the breakdown of information in manageable chunks is ideally suited to me."
"I've never been really good but I thought I knew lots of scales and how they were put together."
"I'm not sure why the very few people who rated the book a 1, 2 or 3 star failed to find high value in Desi's materials, but the vast majority of reviewers obviously did appreciate the book and got a lot out of it. I then bought the second book in spiral bound format, both books in electronic format, and all the DVDs for both books. For those who have taken lessons for years or learned through playing with others, this study course may be too easy, but that's not my situation."
"I have been strumming guitar for almost 20 years, but never learned much beyond basic chords and the pentatonic scale. Recently I did a Google search for what I thought I was looking for, guitar theory lessons, and this book was at the top of the list."
"The spiral binding is awesome in keeping your spot so you aren't constantly flipping back to where you were or trying to hold it open and play at the same time."
"I'm still a hack player :-P ... but I've made some huge leaps in understanding about why and how certain things work the way they do ."
"All I can say is incredible book and videos!"
Best Piano Music
Titles: * Alouette. * Alpine Melody. * Amazing Grace. * Au Claire de la Lune. * Aunt Rhody. * Auld Lang Syne. * Aura Lee. * The Bandleader. * Beautiful Brown Eyes. * Blow the Man Down! * Largo (Dvorak). * Lavender's Blue. * Lightly Row. * Little Brown Jug. * Liza Jane. * London Bridge. * Lone Star Waltz. * Love Somebody. * Lullaby. * The Marine's Hymn. * Mary Ann. * Merrily We Roll Along. * Mexican Hat Dance. * Michael, Row the Boat Ashore. * Money Can't Buy Everything. * My Fifth. * Ode to Joy. * On Top of Old Smoky. * O Sole Mio. * Raisins and Almonds. * Rock Along. * Rockets. * Rockin' Intervals.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"It took me about 1 1/2 months to work through the book and I rate it as excellent instruction for anyone wanting to learn or re-learn the piano."
"A little background before I get into the real review: My 14 y/o trumpet player daughter has been wanting to learn the piano for years. Her trumpet teacher disagreed and recommended she start with the Suzuki method as she has and incredibly good ear and quite a bit of natural musical talent. I bought this book to help rectify that, knowing that I'll be sitting in on her weekly lessons and absorbing a lot of information there. It's pretty exciting to go from not knowing where middle C is located to playing Jingle Bells with a bit of harmony in 2 days! I do plan on adding scales and such to my practice sessions, as these are truly the things that will help you progress and give you a more fundamental understanding of how music is put together. I feel like I'm able to grasp the concepts that are introduced and will be able to help my daughter along once her lessons start in a couple of weeks."
"No CD, but Youtube is better than the CD anyway."
"So far, helping me learn the piano."
"A little bit hard if you are teaching yourself."
"I love this book!!!"
"This is a wonderful book for adult learners and my instructor agrees with me."
"This is a really great book on beginning piano playing."
Best Percussion Instruments
This indispensable book for drummers of all types includes hundreds of basic to advanced rhythms and moves through categories of single-beat combinations, triplets, short roll combinations, flam beats, flam triplets and dotted notes, and short roll progressions.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"', this book answers that question with pages upon pages of exercises that steadily increase in complexity."
"They don't call it the Drummer's Bible for no reason."
"A must for any drummer for developing stick control whether you play snare drum or timpani."
"My left is catching up to my right very quickly!"
"Yes, I'm begining to use it, practicing the exercises, it will be a lot of fun!!"
"Go through the Bibles of drumming, properly, like everybody else, and you too can get anywhere you want in drumming. Contact me if you want more information on how to study the drums properly."
"And once you start to build up speed, the exercises actually start to sound and feel really cool!!"
"Very professional, good book."
Best Music Theory
• How composers produce some of the most pleasurable effects of listening to music by exploiting the way our brains make sense of the world. • Why we are so emotionally attached to the music we listened to as teenagers, whether it was Fleetwood Mac, U2, or Dr. Dre. • That practice, rather than talent, is the driving force behind musical expertise. • How those insidious little jingles (called earworms) get stuck in our head. Now imagine sitting down with someone who was there when the song was recorded and can tell you how that series of sounds was committed to tape, and who can also explain why that particular combination of rhythms, timbres and pitches has lodged in your memory, making your pulse race and your heart swell every time you hear it. Remarkably, Levitin does all this and more, interrogating the basic nature of hearing and of music making (this is likely the only book whose jacket sports blurbs from both Oliver Sacks and Stevie Wonder), without losing an affectionate appreciation for the songs he's reducing to neural impulses.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Found it interesting and informative, even for a non-musician like myself."
"This book taught me alot of the fundamentals that I knew, but didn't understand."
"It clearly explains the basics, and goes deeper into our neurological basis for music."
"Fantastic!"
"The first few chapters can be tough to follow if you are not familiar with most of the terms, but the book become more interesting as you read on."
"Incredible book - highly recommended!"
"I was very intrigued to not only learn this information but to pass it on to others."
"This is a simple book on the basics of music."
Best Music MIDI & Mixers
Music Production can be an elusive art form for many, and the challenges that face someone who is new to this can easily create overwhelm and lead to complete paralysis. The goal of this book, is to cover music production from many different angles in a way that will change your thinking on the subject and build your confidence. Music making is a very mental and psychological game, and more often than not, all the technical stuff can hold you back from achieving your goals if you don't have the right creative habits in place first. Many people new to music may dive into forums and mindlessly watch video tutorials attempting to gather more and more information until they think they have enough to get going (hint: you never feel like you know enough). This book can be read from start to finish, or as a “choose your own adventure”, going directly to what you think can help you most right now.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Lots of practical tips and tricks for the electronic music producer, but plenty of information for traditional music producers as well. If you've ever read the book The War of Art (which the author directly references several times) this is like the electronic music producer's natural extension of that book."
"If Seth Godin and Phil Jackson teamed up to write a book about music, it just might be something like "The Mental Game." Because here, Jason Timothy isn't talking only about music; he's also incorporated truths about human motivation, habits, and ... yes, hard work."
"Jason shows how to get loud about what you love and how to finish songs."
"The main thing which it reminded me was that music production (and probably any other art) is mainly about putting the time in actually creating, not reading or watching tutorials."
"Having this book is essential,it's almost like having an invisible mentor behind us guiding us throughout difficulties while we are perfecting our craft and successfully manifesting our imagination/inspiration into an individual,beautiful piece of new music of our own !"
"You don't have to be a music producer to get benefit from this book."
"I have been writing and producing music for a long time."
"After reading the free introduction to this book, I went on to finish about 12 songs in just a few weeks."
Best Music Conducting
Designed for beginners with no music experience, this interactive book and streaming video course is all that you will need to get started having fun learning to play the piano and reading music! Piano Professor Damon Ferrante guides you through step-by-step, easy-to-follow lessons and streaming video lessons that are the perfect introduction for adults who would like to learn how to playing the piano. "As a piano teacher I can assure the reader that the Ferrante's book ["Little Piano Book"] works well with students of all ages. As a pianist and professor of piano studies for over 35 years, I was alwayslooking for a book that would teach beginner piano in a fun, useful and musical format. Beginner Piano Elements for Adults is the product of these efforts and is designed for beginner pianostudents, either learning on their own or working with a teacher.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"It not only teaches technique but also how to read music and music terms in an easy to follow format. It is so straight to the point and so easy to follow that a person who has never taken a music class could easily follow."
"But the book comes with free video guides, to show you more in depth look. Even if you don’t have a piano you can download a piano on your smart phone and learn to play along on the phone piano with the book."
"SInce I have always wanted to learn to play piano, I was intimidated by other books that seem to leave out the basic fundamentals, This book seems like an easy and clear way to start with the basics and build confidence from there."
""The beginner book and video course follows a step-by-step lesson format for learning how to play piano." The book covers hand position and finger numbering, good posture and location of middle C, counting and measures, three notes and five notes songs."
"It is filled with inspiring language, easily understood graphics and creative, yet functional technique descriptions. Another aspect of Beginner Piano Elements that I find to be excellent is the video that goes with each lesson."
"I'm relatively inexperienced with pretty much every musical instrument that isn't a guitar and piano."
"Starting out as a complete novice, I was impressed by how clear the instructions were and how easily I was able to begin right off the bat."
"Just "put your thumb (1) on C, put your pointer finger (2) on the next note D", now play 11112222."
Best Music Appreciation
Titles: * Alouette. * Alpine Melody. * Amazing Grace. * Au Claire de la Lune. * Aunt Rhody. * Auld Lang Syne. * Aura Lee. * The Bandleader. * Beautiful Brown Eyes. * Blow the Man Down! * Largo (Dvorak). * Lavender's Blue. * Lightly Row. * Little Brown Jug. * Liza Jane. * London Bridge. * Lone Star Waltz. * Love Somebody. * Lullaby. * The Marine's Hymn. * Mary Ann. * Merrily We Roll Along. * Mexican Hat Dance. * Michael, Row the Boat Ashore. * Money Can't Buy Everything. * My Fifth. * Ode to Joy. * On Top of Old Smoky. * O Sole Mio. * Raisins and Almonds. * Rock Along. * Rockets. * Rockin' Intervals.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"It took me about 1 1/2 months to work through the book and I rate it as excellent instruction for anyone wanting to learn or re-learn the piano."
"A little background before I get into the real review: My 14 y/o trumpet player daughter has been wanting to learn the piano for years. Her trumpet teacher disagreed and recommended she start with the Suzuki method as she has and incredibly good ear and quite a bit of natural musical talent. I bought this book to help rectify that, knowing that I'll be sitting in on her weekly lessons and absorbing a lot of information there. It's pretty exciting to go from not knowing where middle C is located to playing Jingle Bells with a bit of harmony in 2 days! I do plan on adding scales and such to my practice sessions, as these are truly the things that will help you progress and give you a more fundamental understanding of how music is put together. I feel like I'm able to grasp the concepts that are introduced and will be able to help my daughter along once her lessons start in a couple of weeks."
"No CD, but Youtube is better than the CD anyway."
"So far, helping me learn the piano."
"A little bit hard if you are teaching yourself."
"I love this book!!!"
"This is a wonderful book for adult learners and my instructor agrees with me."
"This is a really great book on beginning piano playing."
Best Music Songwriting
MASTERING MUSESCORE is the definitive guide to MuseScore 2, the free and open source music notation program for Windows, Mac OS, and Linux. He is the composer of Reunion, the demo song featured with MuseScore 1.3 and earlier releases, and he has worked as an arranger and editor for a number of very popular fakebooks for jazz, blues, and rock.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I use Musescore almost every day to create singing version of songs - in midi format - so I can practice the piano accompaniment, I do the same with cello duets - once again so I can practice the cello accompaniment."
"Get this book, lose the inch-high printout stack you created when you tried to make sense of the original operating manual."
""Mastering MuseScore" is not an easy book to read, let alone a "fun" read."
"There is a free online guide, but having this book with its index is easier to use, at least for me."
"I've been enjoying this book."
"This manual is well written, thorough, and essential for getting the most from the excellent, but complex music notation program, MuseScore."
"First complete manual of this phantastic free open source program. to produce sheet music in an easy, comfortable and - perfect - way."
"I am an old-school guy,and really like to have the book t my side and be able to flip back and forth when i have questions about a function."
Best Music Instruction & Study
Titles: * Alouette. * Alpine Melody. * Amazing Grace. * Au Claire de la Lune. * Aunt Rhody. * Auld Lang Syne. * Aura Lee. * The Bandleader. * Beautiful Brown Eyes. * Blow the Man Down! * Largo (Dvorak). * Lavender's Blue. * Lightly Row. * Little Brown Jug. * Liza Jane. * London Bridge. * Lone Star Waltz. * Love Somebody. * Lullaby. * The Marine's Hymn. * Mary Ann. * Merrily We Roll Along. * Mexican Hat Dance. * Michael, Row the Boat Ashore. * Money Can't Buy Everything. * My Fifth. * Ode to Joy. * On Top of Old Smoky. * O Sole Mio. * Raisins and Almonds. * Rock Along. * Rockets. * Rockin' Intervals.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"It took me about 1 1/2 months to work through the book and I rate it as excellent instruction for anyone wanting to learn or re-learn the piano."
"A little background before I get into the real review: My 14 y/o trumpet player daughter has been wanting to learn the piano for years. Her trumpet teacher disagreed and recommended she start with the Suzuki method as she has and incredibly good ear and quite a bit of natural musical talent. I bought this book to help rectify that, knowing that I'll be sitting in on her weekly lessons and absorbing a lot of information there. It's pretty exciting to go from not knowing where middle C is located to playing Jingle Bells with a bit of harmony in 2 days! I do plan on adding scales and such to my practice sessions, as these are truly the things that will help you progress and give you a more fundamental understanding of how music is put together. I feel like I'm able to grasp the concepts that are introduced and will be able to help my daughter along once her lessons start in a couple of weeks."
"No CD, but Youtube is better than the CD anyway."
"I have looked around for the cd to buy seperately but I cant find it."
"So far, helping me learn the piano."
"Wonderfully detailed, yet gradually increasing difficulty."
"Hard to do on your own, but great for the piano student who knows some."
"Great book for beginners or for those with a little back ground."