[Sticky] Get Noteboat's theory book here

Amazon.ca marks it as available to ship in 1-2 days, but that's from a private seller. Amazon US stocks it - I just got another order from them yesterday - but the foreign Amazon sites tend to either not list it, or list it and not stock it.

how about a sample page or 2 so we can see how it reads? I have found that very helpful when buying from amazon in the past. I believe it is up to the publisher to do this though.

Just ordered the book. It should be arriving on Thursday, and I can't wait to get it! I'm still pretty new at guitar, but it's never too early to learn theory, right?

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Nope definitely not.

Although at one point I realised I knew far too much theory compared to how few techniques, when playing, I had.

Make sure you do both in relatively equal measures. (Most people suggest more practice than theory, actually.)

This book interests me.

I might have to scrape some pennies together and enquire about it a little later.

well i'v done half way through this book and hv to say this .. it is not exhaustive ..

my initial reaction was that this seemed like a cursive writing book .. i mean y wud one need to make this a huge sized book with so much spacing between written material beats me .. only half of the space available is utilized .. i thought noteboat wud realize that too ...

hv nothing personal against the author . infact i have copy pasted all his replies in the guitar theroy forum and saved them on my hard disk .. invaluable stuff and amazing how much this guys knows ..

and that's my point exactly .. i was really dissapointed wid the scope of this book .. books by walter piston , mark levine or ted greene are indispensible for sumone seeking to know abt music theory .. ( even then u might not play like pat metheny or wes montgomery , neither do I )
but this one can safely given a miss .. in my opinion .

for a beginner wid limited exposure to the different genres of music ... this one's a gud bet !

I appreciate any feedback, good or bad. It helps me improve for the next effort. I've had some great constructive criticism from folks, and future editions will probably incorporate their suggestions (including this one about less white space)

I didn't intend for the book to be exhaustive. It basically covers the concepts you'd get in a first-semester theory course (rhythm classification, intervals, chord structure), and it's meant to be introductory; you don't need to know anything about music to be able to understand it.

Sorry if you were disappointed by it.

I did not intend to be misleading. And if you'll double-check, I do not have a "Hindu raga" in the book.

The section on scales contains 13 of the 72 Carnatic ragas. At the bottom of the section, I mention that the raga system is quite complex - I did not get into the fact that most of the other ragas fall outside the chromatic system, and I did not address microtonal music at all in the book.

But the ragas are from Southern India - the music of Northern India is much simpler, and it's my understanding that this Norhtern music is called Hindustani music (here's a wikipedia reference - all of the research materials I used in preparing the book were textbooks not available on-line).

It's also my understanding that this music from Northern India had two cardinal scales - I think the local names for them are sa-grama and ma-grama? As one of the scales fell from common use, the remaining one is commonly called the "Hindu" scale in most books I have seen, and I called it by that commonly used name. Perhaps Hindustani scale would have been clearer, or sa-grama. You tell me what's preferred - or enlighten me if there's a different name I'm unaware of.

There are other instances where I used a commonly accepted name rather than an accurate but obscure label - the 'Arabian' scale is from one of three major systems of Arabian/Persian music, none of which use the term 'Arabian' to describe the cardinal scale.

Many scales have dozens of names, as they sprang up independently in different parts of the world. I wasn't trying to build a world music catalog, just to give some insight into other scales - after all, that section is a sidebar! - and I had no intention to offend.

After lurking on the forum for the past couple of months, I just had to register so I could let NoteBoat know I ordered his book from Barnes & Noble. Your straightforward answers to every question, be it simple or complex, convinced me that this was the book for me.

It should be here by the middle of next week. Who knows, maybe you can teach an old dog new tricks!

To noteboat :
Btw , I found hindu raga in ur book at page 72
also a 6th and 7th flatted is commonly referred to as Charukeshi
now this one is a Carnatic raga , not a North indian raga per say , and improvisation ..which is wat v generally do with ragas is nt particulalry so easy with this one .. that's just a personal opinion

And yes , it seems natural that when ppl from different cultures hear each others music ... a certain generalisation creeps in regarding names ...but I jus thought that if they were written in a music theory book , they should have their proper names . Still , i wasnt offended b'coz of that or anything .

I just hope that ur next book ( or next edition ) is a much more comprehensive treatment .
Cheers !

I appreciate you letting me know the name, avichaks.

I don't call it a raga, though - ragas are indicated on that page with asterisks next to the names. The Hindu scale doesn't have an asterisk.

Sure ,whateva u say .. u r the boss !

he other two faults he finds - that I'm not 'up to date on advances in guitar tablature' and that you need to have more than a basic undertanding of music to use the book, simply don't make sense. You can't learn theory through tab - tab does not distinguish between F# and Gb (an important difference, for theory!) or other enharmonic notes - so tab is only used to facilitate understanding the standard notation.

*hugs NoteBoat*

I'm a music-readin' man. All I can say is, music reading is easy when you take band in middle and high school.

I agree, reading is easy - it's very visual. Just like reading printed words, after you get the hang of it you see a melody and hear it in your head.

Reading for guitar can be daunting, because you've got so many choices. A general band teacher I work with plays 17 instruments reasonably well, but has told me he finds it impossible to learn the guitar... because on the guitar, you end up having to learn to realize what you read a bunch of different ways. It takes constant practice to do that, and many people don't want to put in the effort.

Well, I do have to admit, I have trouble reading guitar music. Bass and tuba are easy for me, 'cause it's one note at a time, but I've gotta think about the guitar. I can read treble clef fine, 'cause of playing piano somewhat mediocrely also.

I just bought this book thanks to the great reviews on this website. I must say its a well written book. I'm off to read it now. Thanks.