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Old 07-13-2020, 05:50 PM
funkapus funkapus is offline
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Default The Well-Tempered Instrumentalist

I'm curious if anyone here has spent time working through the book The Well-Tempered Instrumentalist? It's reviewed rather highly; but often that doesn't mean anything. It wasn't too expensive on Amazon so I picked it up, and almost immediately had questions about applying it to guitar. But before committing a lot of effort to it, I wanted to find out what others thought of it.
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Old 07-13-2020, 08:31 PM
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Have not read the book. From what I have read about it it does seem directed to monophonic instruments much more than
polyphonic instruments like the guitar which makes me wonder about the coverage of harmony and chord structure.
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Old 07-14-2020, 11:48 AM
JonPR JonPR is offline
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It looks to me like it's designed to improve your ear, and your general aural/physical relationship with the instrument - and perhaps to open out your thinking about rhythm and interpretation. That has to be a good thing, for guitarists as much as any instrumentalist.

If it says nothing about harmony or chords, I don't see that as a disadvantage - it's clearly not designed as a theory or technique book. (I mean, it talks about technique, but it's designed to be applicable to all instruments, so improving your guitar technique is up to you!)

My issue with it (from the little I can see of it) is the same as with any book of this kind: I could work all this stuff out myself (including inventing the exercises), if I could be bothered.

IOW, I might well be aware that I could improve my ear and musicianship in ways this book is designed to help. But once I'm aware that I have that problem, then I know exactly what I can do to help myself. I don't need a book to tell me. Or rather, I've seen the same (or very similar) advice countless times before. I know the drill. There is nothing new here (new to me anyhow).

But that's me, the tired old cynic! I'd be saying the same about many guitar books that everyone else raves about!
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Old 07-14-2020, 06:22 PM
MartinGibsonFan MartinGibsonFan is offline
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To me, being a well tempered instrumentalist (guitar) means applying sufficient pressure with your fretting fingers to have the string (chord) sound in tune. This becomes an instinctive process, but I believe can be controlled when first learning the guitar. Here are some links that might be of interest>

https://www.mylespaul.com/threads/th...method.162545/

https://www.acousticguitarforum.com/...d.php?t=191153

J
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Old 07-14-2020, 07:45 PM
mc1 mc1 is offline
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For those other than the OP, who has the book, here's a review:

http://www.everyonecanjam.com/music-blog/welltempered

And this revealing quote from amazon:
Quote:
This method helps the player through progressive exercises, to build the ability to know and hear one's instrument and to be able to improvise, compose, or create melodies. The process involves memorizing small tonal scale fragments, phrases and songs in all keys, around the circle of 4ths & 5ths, (& other cycles) until they are automatized in the brain/ear/fingerings . . just like memorizing words, vocabulary and phrases that can be used for extemporaneous discussion on familiar subjects.
There are some other pages viewable at amazon. Seems reasonable, I don't see how it could hurt.

funkapus, what questions did you have about applying it to the guitar?
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Old 07-14-2020, 07:55 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JonPR View Post
I don't need a book to tell me. Or rather, I've seen the same (or very similar) advice countless times before. I know the drill. There is nothing new here (new to me anyhow).

But that's me, the tired old cynic! I'd be saying the same about many guitar books that everyone else raves about!
I get what you mean, but I think there's value in how different people explain things, different insights. There are so many ways of slicing and dicing music, thinking about "theory", which is pretty amazing when you consider there's only 12 notes. So even if you know 20 different ways thru whatever it is, someone's probably thought of a 21st way to look at it (or explain it). I find that useful, sometimes inspiring, etc. Also, as someone who tries to teach a lot of this stuff, I'm always interested in how others present the information, and if there's an approach that's clearer than the approach I use.

I'm a book addict :-) I ordered this one just to see what it's like. Thanks to the OP for the tip.
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Old 07-14-2020, 08:18 PM
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Also, for someone like JonPR, the value of a book like this might be different from someone else who isn't so musically knowledgeable.
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Old 07-14-2020, 09:18 PM
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Many things out there on musicality - books, videos, websites. More things out there than anyone can possibly explore more
than a fraction of. Decide on your primary goals and start off looking for well reviewed material specific to those. Personally I
get more bang for the buck by listening to music rather than reading about it.
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Old 07-15-2020, 10:58 AM
JonPR JonPR is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Doug Young View Post
I get what you mean, but I think there's value in how different people explain things, different insights. There are so many ways of slicing and dicing music, thinking about "theory", which is pretty amazing when you consider there's only 12 notes. So even if you know 20 different ways thru whatever it is, someone's probably thought of a 21st way to look at it (or explain it). I find that useful, sometimes inspiring, etc. Also, as someone who tries to teach a lot of this stuff, I'm always interested in how others present the information, and if there's an approach that's clearer than the approach I use.
My attitude entirely! I also like to check out other books for the exact same reason. Occasionally there's surprising little nuggets in there one can steal.

I'm not quite the addict you are, that's the only difference. (Books are a drug I prefer to consume in careful moderation... I tend to get a bigger kick that way )
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Old 07-15-2020, 11:04 AM
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Also, for someone like JonPR, the value of a book like this might be different from someone else who isn't so musically knowledgeable.
Absolutely!
My only comment there is that - for someone who isn't musically knowledgeable - there might be better choices.

However good this book might be, better choices would be books that are more widely popular, better sellers. That's obviously unfair on any unknown author who might have brilliant insights, but the best way to learn is the conventional way most other people learn, because that's the most secure foundation.

The more you progress, the more comfortable you get with the standard concepts, the more valuable alternative viewpoints can (sometimes) be. It's as important not to get stuck in a conventional rut as it is to not get taken off down some flakey sidetrack. The conventions are not "rules" one has to follow, but also there's a lot of snake-oil salesmen out there...
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Old 07-15-2020, 03:01 PM
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This book arrived, it's fine for what it is, and if you really worked through it, you'd learn your way around your instrument well. It's basically an exploration of intervals and transposition. Virtually no text, just music with 1 sentence instructions like "transpose to all keys". So if you know your basic theory, it just gives you some structure to practice playing intervals, patterns, and melodies in all keys. If you don't understand it, the book would be best with a teacher.

The author is a trombonist, and the book fits well into the Aebersold line of books, which is referenced.

This sort of thing seems useful, but is far more useful to horn players than guitarists. Playing three blind mice in C, and then C#, D, D#, etc is a tougher task for a sax player for example (as I used to be...), whereas on guitar, shift your hand up one fret and you're done, so it's not such an interesting task. Same with the interval exercises. Being able to play any note on a sax and then play a 3rd above, or a b5, etc, takes some knowledge and practice. On guitar, it's a geometric shape, and once you know it, you're more or less done (other than that pesky 3rd interval between strings 3 and 2) even without know the notes or keys.

So, decent little self-published set of exercises, but far more useful to horn players, and to a much lesser extent keyboard players, than guitarists.
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Old 07-15-2020, 03:43 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Doug Young View Post
This book arrived, it's fine for what it is, and if you really worked through it, you'd learn your way around your instrument well. It's basically an exploration of intervals and transposition. Virtually no text, just music with 1 sentence instructions like "transpose to all keys". So if you know your basic theory, it just gives you some structure to practice playing intervals, patterns, and melodies in all keys. If you don't understand it, the book would be best with a teacher.

The author is a trombonist, and the book fits well into the Aebersold line of books, which is referenced.

This sort of thing seems useful, but is far more useful to horn players than guitarists. Playing three blind mice in C, and then C#, D, D#, etc is a tougher task for a sax player for example (as I used to be...), whereas on guitar, shift your hand up one fret and you're done, so it's not such an interesting task. Same with the interval exercises. Being able to play any note on a sax and then play a 3rd above, or a b5, etc, takes some knowledge and practice. On guitar, it's a geometric shape, and once you know it, you're more or less done (other than that pesky 3rd interval between strings 3 and 2) even without know the notes or keys.

So, decent little self-published set of exercises, but far more useful to horn players, and to a much lesser extent keyboard players, than guitarists.
Yes, exactly what I pointed out would be likely in my first post.
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Old 07-15-2020, 10:18 PM
funkapus funkapus is offline
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Originally Posted by mc1 View Post
funkapus, what questions did you have about applying it to the guitar?
For me, the issue isn't so much the polyphony of the guitar, as the -- not sure of the correct word -- duplication (?) of the fretboard. The fact that there's more than one place to sound a particular note; and when playing a musical phrase, the choice of location to play a particular note is probably determined by where on the fretboard you were just before, and what notes you're going to need shortly after. But that's further down the road than where I am now. I can imagine that I'd get better at making such choices as my unconscious familiarity with the fretboard improves.

But for example, the very beginning of the book, before you've started on any exercises, indicates that to get started, one should practice playing through the Circle of Fourths/Fifths in all octaves within the instrument's playing range, until one can play the circle without thinking about it. OK. Now imagine I'm starting on the lowest E in standard tuning, string 6 fret 0, and want to move up a fourth. I can move up to the fifth fret, OR I can move up a string. If I moved up to the fifth fret, if I move up a fourth after that, I can move up to the 10th fret OR I can move up a string. And then a string after that. And five frets up/seven frets back after that. Or one string and two frets down. There seems an endless number of ways to do this -- so much so that I'm no longer sure that what I'm doing is what the author had in mind, or what best moves me toward the goal of all of this -- to be able to play the music in my head without thinking about it.
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Old 07-15-2020, 10:27 PM
funkapus funkapus is offline
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Originally Posted by JonPR View Post
Absolutely!
My only comment there is that - for someone who isn't musically knowledgeable - there might be better choices.

However good this book might be, better choices would be books that are more widely popular, better sellers. That's obviously unfair on any unknown author who might have brilliant insights, but the best way to learn is the conventional way most other people learn, because that's the most secure foundation.
This is reasonable; but it's often hard to tell these days, because in terms of materials there's so much astroturfing out there.

To improve my ability to play music in my head immediately, the main thing I've been trying up to this point is just sitting with the guitar and playing simple melodies as much as I can -- melodies that I know well in my head, but have never tried to learn to play on the guitar. Nursery rhymes, TV show themes, simple pop songs, the occasional non-simple pop song. I try to sing the notes as I'm playing, ideally a tiny instant *before* I sound the note on the guitar. And I try to change the tunes up frequently, so that I'm not simply memorizing how to play a particular song on the guitar, but instead training my expectation of where to go to create a certain melodic interval. And I *do* think this is working. It's just working very, very slowly. And I'm old, and thus impatient because I want to get a lot better before I drop dead or something. So I'm always looking for some way to attack this other than what I've been doing.

Quote:
The more you progress, the more comfortable you get with the standard concepts, the more valuable alternative viewpoints can (sometimes) be. It's as important not to get stuck in a conventional rut as it is to not get taken off down some flakey sidetrack. The conventions are not "rules" one has to follow, but also there's a lot of snake-oil salesmen out there...
YES. I do worry about that. And I also worry about spending too much time trying to figure out the best of multiple ways to learn something, and not enough time actually doing any of them. But like I said, my impatience isn't the impatience of youth, so it's hard not to ask "is this the *best* way to come at this?"
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Old 07-15-2020, 10:31 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by funkapus View Post
For me, the issue isn't so much the polyphony of the guitar, as the -- not sure of the correct word -- duplication (?) of the fretboard. The fact that there's more than one place to sound a particular note; and when playing a musical phrase, the choice of location to play a particular note is probably determined by where on the fretboard you were just before, and what notes you're going to need shortly after. But that's further down the road than where I am now. I can imagine that I'd get better at making such choices as my unconscious familiarity with the fretboard improves.

But for example, the very beginning of the book, before you've started on any exercises, indicates that to get started, one should practice playing through the Circle of Fourths/Fifths in all octaves within the instrument's playing range, until one can play the circle without thinking about it. OK. Now imagine I'm starting on the lowest E in standard tuning, string 6 fret 0, and want to move up a fourth. I can move up to the fifth fret, OR I can move up a string. If I moved up to the fifth fret, if I move up a fourth after that, I can move up to the 10th fret OR I can move up a string. And then a string after that. And five frets up/seven frets back after that. Or one string and two frets down. There seems an endless number of ways to do this -- so much so that I'm no longer sure that what I'm doing is what the author had in mind, or what best moves me toward the goal of all of this -- to be able to play the music in my head without thinking about it.
Right, that is a (somewhat) unique challenge on guitar, as opposed to a wind instrument or piano. But this book won't help much with that. Something like the Fretboard Logic books probably help, being guitar-centric (I don't have those books and have no idea if they are good or not). You could certainly use the exercises in the well-tempered book as a set of exercises to play while figuring this all out - but you have to do it yourself.
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