Relearning Guitar
10 years ago I had to stop playing guitar because of hand injuries. I had sold an online business and decided to move to Spain to study flamenco guitar. I signed up for a guitar program there and got a student visa, but my hands got injured a few months before I left. That was the end of my guitar playing days, and I had to give up my hopes to become a musician.
My hands have been doing well enough lately to practice at least a little while in quarantine, so I've decided to pick it up again. I want to see how far I can go with it by the time the pandemic is over. This time I'm going to start by learning jazz/contemporary music theory, but things may change.
My only guitar at the moment is a classical guitar with nylon strings. I don't want to push my right hand too hard, so I'll use a pick. I plan to get an electric guitar eventually, because the strings require less pressure. I've been inspired lately by listening to old recordings of Allan Holdsworth, Pete Cosey, John McLaughlin, and John Etheridge from the early 1970s. There is a certain reason why I'm interested in that music, but I'll save it for another blog post.
I also have a site called baroqueguitar.com and have always wanted to get a 5-course Baroque guitar and try to help bring attention to the instrument.
Learning Materials
To begin, I'm working through a book called A Modern Method for Guitar: Volumes 1, 2, 3 Complete by William Leavitt. It's a textbook from Berklee School of Music in Boston that looked like it would be a good way to relearn how to read music and increase knowledge of the fretboard.
I started the book on May 17th and will see how long it takes to get through it. I'm averaging about 10 pages per day and the book is 424 pages.
Other Interesting Guitar and Music Theory Books
I've been looking around for books to check out after I finish the current one. I found some recommendations on YouTube and various other sources. A checkmark in the first column means that I already have the book from years ago.
| Title | Author | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|
| ✓ | Chord Chemistry | Greene | |
| ✓ | Scales Over Chords (Book and CD) | Wilbur Savidge | Recommended1 |
| Amazing Phrasing | Tom Kolb | Recommended1 | |
| Music Theory [Hal Leonard Guitar Method] | Tom Kolb | Recommended1 | |
| Soloing Strategies for Guitar | Tom Kolb | Recommended1 | |
| ? | How to Play Jazz & Improvise (series) | Jamey Aebersold | Recommended1 |
| Blues You Can Use | John Ganapes | Recommended1 | |
| Flamenco Guitar (sample) | Graf-Martinez | Recommended1 | |
| Understanding How to Build Guitar Chords & Arpeggios | Michael Policastro | Recommended1 | |
| ✓ | Jazz Guitar, Complete Edition (Book & CD) | Jody Fisher | Recommended1 |
| ✓ | Pumping Nylon | Scott Tennant | Recommended1 |
| ✓ | Speed Mechanics for Lead Guitar | Troy Stetina | Recommended1 |
| ✓ | The Advancing Guitarist | Mick Goodrick | Recommended3 |
| Ultimate Country Play-Along | Lee, Donhaue, Trovato | Recommended1 | |
| Effortless Mastery: Liberating the Master Musician Within | Kenny Werner | Recommended1 | |
| Guitar Grimoire[^2] | Recommended1 | ||
| ✓ | Building Walking Bass Lines | Ed Friedland | Recommended3 |
| Twentieth-Century Harmony | Vincent Persichetti | Recommended3 | |
| A Chromatic Approach to Jazz Harmony | David Liebman | Recommended3 | |
| Harmonic Experience | W. A. Mathieu | Recommended3 | |
| ✓ | The Jazz Theory Book | Mark Levine |
Footnotes
- 1 My 14 Essential Guitar Books
- 2 There might be better resources online these days. The "progressions" edition looked interesting though.
- 3 The 5 Music Theory/Composition Books That Most Influenced Me