Music Theory: From Beginner to Expert - The Ultimate Step-By-Step Guide to Understanding and Learning Music Theory Effortlessly (Essential Learning Tools for Musicians)

Nicolas Carter has written an extremely well rounded book on music theory that can be understood by beginners; This is the first part of the book (excluding only the last chapter) that starts by explaining basic music theory fundamentals and then eases into scales, modes, chords, rhythm, movement, and concludes with musical structures. Amazingly, Mr Carter has done this without using standard music notation, which is conveniently covered in his companion book, How to Read Music. Chord progression is explained and expanded upon throughout the book as appropriate. However, experienced musicians may also learn a few things or gain valuable review by reading this first part too. Please note that chord abbreviations are meticulously defined, thus music notation (staff/staves) can be avoided without compromising explanations regarding chords. The final chapter goes beyond these fundamentals; it focuses on improvisation with parallels to actual composition. Here Mr. Carter explains advanced musical concepts and expands on concepts introduced earlier in the book, such as further techniques for modifying chord progressions (substitutions, modal reduction, polytonal substitutions, chord scales), chromaticism, polytonality, modal harmony, polymodality, atonality and even free harmony. In the discussion of the melodic minor scale, Mr. Carter uses a definition where the exact same tones (degrees 6 and 7) are used for a melody going up versus going down. While his definition is agreed upon by a significant number of musicians, I do believe that Mr. Carter should have mentioned the other definition (where degrees 6 and 7 shift up/down a semitone depending on melodic direction) , which is usually mentioned by most other books on music theory, even to exclusion of Mr. Carter's equally valid definition. I will not claim to be an expert on reviewing music theory books. In college, I was a Mathematics major. My major professor suggested that I take music theory classes; I took two full years of music theory classes and applied this knowledge to a simple computer program that computes chord progressions. The program followed all the rules of chord progression that I had learned. I had not yet learned how to break the rules successfully, so neither did the program. You will read a great deal more about music theory from Mr. Carter's book than I learned and retained from two years of music theory courses! His book is available through kindle unlimited, so if you have kindle unlimited, you have no excuse for not reading his music theory book! Even without kindle unlimited, the cost is minimal; try it; I'm sure you will enjoy it!

Comprehensive, concise and practical. Nicolas does such a good job of covering what’s important to understanding HOW music works, that I can see how it would be overwhelming to beginners. So take heart if you are and want to attain a professional level because this book will take you there. There’s something for every level in this book. Expect to ponder many aspects of this wonderful thing we call music and improve your musicianship as you do. There’s so much information that even seasoned professionals will find “I didn’t know that” topics. At the very least you’ll get different perspectives that will expand your horizons, i.e. there’s plenty of food for thought (that’s not wordy or a waste of time). I particularly appreciated how Nicolas points out crucial information that is easy to not to think much of. For example, page 192 Timbre/Tone points out the importance of this subject. For years I was “unable” to figure out songs by ear because no matter what I did, it “didn’t sound right” to me. When I heard other people play I’d think “yeah, that’s it, but something’s wrong” without having a clue what it was. If only I had known that coming out of the gate. I can only think of two suggestions to improve this book. 1) The word “microtuning” is never used. The subject is covered to a degree with equal temperament, overtone and just intonation, but does not point out how modern synths can easily create other divisions of the octave (19, 22, 24, 27 and 31 divisions are common) and that there is music specifically written for various tunings. 2) I was pleased to find Spirituality and Music covered on page 233. This would be a good place to add the healing aspects of music. Steven Halpern’s Chakra Suite (and the book Sound Health) are good examples of what I’m talking about. When I first seen Steven in the 80’s, He demonstrated how powerful music is and the seminar not only made me a better musician, it changed my life. So if you’re looking for a book to take you to a professional level with music and change your life, this book will help you do that. It’s that good.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an unbiased review. I found the explanations thorough and easy to understand. Scales, chords - how they are built and how they relate, chord substitutions, modes, inversions and extensions all became more clear to me and will give the aspiring songwriter a wealth of ideas to explore and have fun with. Not that you need to be or want to be a songwriter to benefit. All players should know the information in this book. Being such a broad and deep subject, it's impossible to cover all of the aspects of theory in a single book but this little gem certainly has enough that anyone wanting to get a grasp of the more important/fundamental concepts of music theory will be well rewarded. I don't often rate anything 5 stars but Nicolas' book comes close to that standard for me. The (very minor) faults as I see it are an occasional mis-spelling and such, maybe auto spell raised it's ugly head once or twice. I want to re-read it and update this review as I didn't bother making any notes while reading but all in all I would highly recommend this book to anyone with no knowledge on the subject, or someone like me with a more intermediate understanding. I'm sure there are professional players who could gain a lot from reading it. I'll be looking at Carter's other books and hope their quality are as good as this one. I'm very impressed with this book and want to help encourage more from this author so I also paid for a copy. It's that good.

I think this book is great! For absolute beginners, it can be a bit difficult starting from the ground up. It’s a lot of baseline information to take in before you can actually get into some of the basics of music theory, but I think the author did a good job explaining the basics. This isn’t a book that you’re going to read once and have a complete understanding of music theory. It’s a book of very useful information that will require application/practice in order to fully understand and be able to use. I’ve enjoyed it immensely and found my knowledge of music theory and music in general has skyrocketed! My one critique would be that it could use a more thorough explanation of the circle of fifths (and fourths). There’s a lot more to the CoF than is covered in the book, but it’s enough to get you by at first. TL;DR: solid book that is as-advertised, readers will need to spend time with it in order to understand everything.

Best Music theroy book I have seen. It explains things in an easy to understand format. No fluff. Everything is explained in a logical maner without expecting you to know anything yet not insulting your intellegence. The knowlege can be applied to any musical instrument, but seems primarily targerted toward guitar and then piano. It is concise without being terse or leaving out important details. I was able to understand more reading this book for 3 hours than I have with other theroy books. You can use it as a reference book that you can dive into when you are trying to make sense of something. You won't get lost or over your head in theroy trying to remember some detail you may have forgotten because the book is written extremely well. I also had a question that I emailed to the author and I got a responce within a day or two. I like the book so much I gave a copy as a gift. The book is well organized. I only wished that I could have discovered it sooner!

This is a very superficial review of music theory. It is an introduction to music theory, and no more. I have nothing bad to say about the book, except that its description is misleading. It properly should be labeled as what it is. If it had been, I would not have bought it. This is at most an outline of music theory topics, with definitions of terms and in some cases, very short explanations. To suggest that it progresses to some form of "expert" level is absurd and quite disingenuous as a selling point. I would describe myself as an "advanced beginner" musically. I learned next to nothing from this book that I did not already know, and everything here is available readily from the internet and YouTube. Yes, almost anything can be found somewhere for free on the internet, but I find books useful if all the information is gathered in one place, the author guides you through the information in more depth, and the author has expertise that he or she shares together with insights into the subject matter that might not be so easy to find. This book does not fit that description. I think I could have written the book, or at least two thirds of it. Having said all that, I give the book three stars instead of one or two, because it is written well enough and accomplishes the modest task of presenting an introduction to music theory. The price is in keeping with what it delivers, as opposed to what it promises. Indeed, it is not a bad value, and if the author did not exaggerate the nature of the book's contents, it would merit the four or even five stars that others have given it. (But I still would not have bought it.)

LOVE IT

I've tried playing guitar very very part time for many years. I've read a few books on theory and found this one to be very helpful. I play better now and got a feel for music theory now. Great book ! Thanks Nicolas, Matt